2005 Prius, 1st drive impressions

Well, my Prius came in and I'm still on cloud nine. To see its brand new shiny metallic silver body glisten coupled with its new car smell is really something. I'm so excited, and I'm looking forward to years and years with this awesome technological wonder.

I purchased package 5, so I've got a few options I guess. Immediately, the homelink system (which I always ignored in other cars) seems to have taken on all new coolness in this car, and so I've actually programmed it. Nice practical feature. All wasn't perfect however, here's what I've run into since driving it home day 1:

There are two visible scratches visible when looking at the MPH display. The dealer recognized it, and wrote it up. He said that he feels it's probably on the mirror itself instead of the plastic cover in front of the actual display. If that's the case, he tells me that he will order the mirror but that it's a back ordered part and may take a while to get here. He recommended I use a little compressed air on the mirror area (holding at a distance though) to make sure it's not fabric pieces. It isn't. On the other hand, I seem to feel some abrasion on the plastic cover where the scratches are, so it might just be that. And boy, let me say that the plastic cover smudges so easily. Cleaning it with a light windex & water solution took a while to get it clear notwithstanding scraches.

Back seat on left is very had to put back (snap back) into position after folding it down. Lightly pushing it up and back doesn't work, and just results in the noise of the seat hitting against metal. The other seat folds up easily, but this one I have to really push hard and fast to get it to snap back. I have yet to mention it to the dealer.

Center speaker on the much acclaimed JBL sound system (wink wink) is full of static at even moderate volume levels. When I first got in the car, the balance was pushed 80-90% front of center, and I'm wondering if maybe somehow somebody "tested" it out, because it seems like that center speaker is going. I'm not sure whether I should follow the advice of some others and remove the speaker's wire, or get the dealer to replace and then maybe remove it.

Now the driving experience:

I commute about 50 miles each way to work, and do so at pretty fast speeds. I did notice that depsite the lack of much wind, the car was noticeably wandering. Not enough to be a concern really to me, at least not in normal weather conditions. However, I have to wonder what this is gonna be like in Februrary with 10 inches of snow. It should be interesting!

I also noticed that at high speeds, the engine seemed to be pulsing a bit, for lack of a better description. Sometimes it felt like the engine was handling it with ample HP and other times it seemed like the breaks were being applied even though I didn't hit them or have Cruise control on. This was actually more of a concern to me than the wandering. I'm still not sure why it would have been doing that, but it did seem strange.

After arriving home and deciding to take it out later, I made the very stupid mistake of not fully releasing the emergency brake. I didn't notice it until about 1 mile down the local road, fortunatley not that far into the drive and not exceeding say 35mph. After realizing the red light was on, I freaked and then pulled over to release. I hope never to make that blunder again, I'm wondering how much if any "damage" I may have caused by that move. Someone please make me feel better and tell me it should be ok - this is my new baby, afterall!

Other than that, I'm in heaven. I feel a part of a smarter more environmentally concious collective - a new feel for me. I'm glad to be there/here.

I should have added the good things about the drive so far:

- Overall smooth ride. I do hear some minor road noise and a bump here and there over older roads where I live, but I like the firm feel and the way the car rides.

- I actually dig the power steering. I like the feel of it.

- Stealth crusing in town is a dream.

- I'm sure I'll think of more later.

 

Thanks - I will do that! What did you pay for them if you don't mind me asking? I saw a few other member recommended tires, in case I can't find the brand you mention, can you suggest a 2nd choice? I recall hearing Blizzex (sp?) are good but I have no idea if they come in the right size.

 

Thanks for the tire info.

Noticed two other minor issues today. Both lights above the sun visors are out, they won''t turn on. The other personal lights work fine.

Also, the glass on the hatchback shows a sort of spotted effect in the right light. I've seen this many times over the years with tinted glass of one sort or another but never gave it much thought. Strangely, I didn't notice this until tonight, day 2, even though I'm pretty sure it wasn't there before.

Obviously, neither is a big issue. Interesting though that both lights above the visor are out. I'm not sure if that speaks to a bad fuse or something else.

 

My bad Tideland, thanks. The lights are fine.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I'm fine with the glass like it is, now that I know it's more or less the way it goes with this type of thing. I never thought to open the mirrors for the lights, but that's all it was.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the b'jesus out of my Prius. Getting great gas mileage, too. I did a 90mi round trip today, cruising near 80mph the whole way and still got around 46 mpg.