1st day driving our Prius

Hey everyone! My wife finally let me drive our new Prius today (Salsa Red, Option #6) so I made it count and knocked out 400 miles!

I live in Morgan Hill, CA, and first thing on the agenda was going up to San Francisco to Caltrans/Fastrack for the hybrid Fastrack. Got up a little late so I was in traffic most of the way up. I counted 6 Prii on my way up and at one point we were 3 Prii abreast on 280 in the Palo Alto area (a red on my right and gold on my left!) Pretty cool stuff. When I got into the city and onto the Embarcadero my Nav thought I was in the Bay (about 40 ft east of where I really was) so I parked on hoofed it to the building.

Well, I hoofed it a little too far and called them up (phone # is in the upper left hand corner) and they politely gave me proper directions over to them. For any locals looking for this building, it is NOT where you expect it to be, it is across the street from Pier 5 and there is pay parking on the same side right there as well. After about 3 minutes I had my little white box, papers, and "here's an extra copy of this form for you to mail into the DMV with your application". . . sweeteness.

Next stop Sacramento! I had found out (through the links on this forum actually) that you cannot walk into any DMV to pick up these stickers, oh no, way too top secret/double handshake to let the local branches deal with. You have to mail it in to a special dept in Sacto, so I thought I'd shave a day's time in the mail and visit some friends and my insurance agent to show off the new wheels

On this leg I see two: one blue and one white.

By this time my 1st priority complaint is the driver's seat. Too high up. I'm only 6'0" and I can't see some of the stoplights! Crazy stuff, that I need to look into. If I get something fabbed up is anyone else interested? I'd genuinely like to knock an inch off of that altitude.

By the time I get to Sac I'm getting comfortable with the steering wheel controls: "My gosh, what geniuses! They put the toggle between info/map on the steering wheel! I use those all the time!" etc. No, that was not sarcasm. A/C on/off toggle? Why hasn't anyone done this before? 15 buttons on the steering wheel and everyone of them belongs there. If I could make a suggestion to Toyota about that wheel would be to refinish the "gold/bronze" pods containing the buttons with material from the seat/armrest/door insterts. Minor stuff. f

While travelling about Roseville and Citrus Heights I saw 5-7 Prii in driveways, parked in shopping areas, etc.

Visit a couple of friends (Roseville Toyota is still backed up if anyone is hoping to find a free one there), hit the Taco Bell, then the road back to Morgan Hill. Into Sacto I was averaging 48.xmpg by the center screen. By the time I get back to home I'm at 47.1 (Wth?) cruise was set at 75mph on all 3 legs whenever possible (I can now see why some people can get better mileage without using the cruise, but man is that carefree cruising with it on!). I finally get to feel it in some sidewinds. Umm, I hope that the bracing helps because this car needs it. What scares me is that it wasn't truly windy , mind you I was only getting blown around a couple of inches it is just that I wouldn't have expected any movement at all.

Got home, picked up the wife, and blasted up to Mountain View to take a friend out to dinner. Man I love these HID's! What a difference they make. My friend was blown away by the car, especially the smart key and when engine wasn't on. Cool stuff.

I like this car, I'm happy my wife loves it so much. I need to get a rubber cargo mat so she can throw her bike in the back, and the iPod adapter so she can hook up. On top of that we now both HAVE TO HAVE bluetooth phones for x-mas B)

I have posted in the mods about bracing. I have purchased the TOMS's floor stiffener, and BT Tech's brace. I will also be purchasing the two other TOM's braces (one is a strut tower brace, and I want to see where the other one ends up) and will report on all of these as they show/get installed.

I'm concerned about the body roll and see myself getting the TRD Sportivo for this car. My '00 MR-S actually got more comfortable with it, and as there aren't any "anti-sway bars" readily available for our car, I need to investigate springs as a way to solve it. I happen to agree with Brian over at BT Tech that the car is sprung too softly, and I hope this fixes/reduces the body roll to a satisfactory level.

I am not independently wealthy, so I am limiting myself to two purchases/month (and I did 3 in October if you include the car :blink: ) so this will not be overnight results. If anyone else is interested in chasing these things down, I think cross-posting on results of these mods will help a lot of people decide if they are interested in them. I am also willing to coordinate with others so that we cover more products quicker. Just a thought. I really like this car, and thank you for the cool forum.

 

Thanks for the replies! I need to read about the voice commands for sure! I thought it was mainly for bluetooth, I am glad to hear that I am wrong.

The Prius is now the designated "long-distance" car that will see 18,000-24,000 miles per year basing on our history with our car of that role. I will only drive that car on road trips, to take in for service (across the street), and *maybe* when I need to go somewhere (like yesterday). Otherwise it is mainly my wife's. What can I say? A happy wife . . . . B)

I will post in the performance mods area as the chassis stiffeners come in. If nothing else it will be knowledge base stuff, keep in mind these pieces don't make the ride any firmer, they help support the chassis and let the steering and suspension do their jobs better. If nothing else it keeps rattles and squeaks away for a much longer period of time.

 

Thanks to other posters in this forum we tried out voice commands last night (easy killer!) and had a blast. Definitely a lot left to figure out with this car.

I'd also like to clear up something else, I wasn't necessarily dissapointed with 47mpg, just didn't understand it dropping from 48mpg is all. After reading through some more threads I know I am getting better than average mpg for such a "fresh" car, so I am pretty excited about that.

Now, when do I get to drive the car again?