6 Month Impression

As for a place to rest one's elbow, the cup holder immediately in front of the console isn't an issue for me, unless there's a cup in it. On the left side, though, I am unable to rest my elbow on the "arm rest" because it is so low.

In my daily 98-mile commute, I am getting mid-50's outbound from home and mid-60's inbound, mostly on cruise control with just a few stop lights. The only thing I can attribute the difference to is that my office is located at an altitude of a couple hundred feet higher than my home address, so I'm able to do more coasting on the return trip.

I've got just over 2,000 miles on the car, and we love it. It looks good (Barcelona red), the mileage is better than we expected and we like the technology. XM radio eliminates the reception problems for us, and one feature my wife really likes is the space under the "floating" console. She puts her purse there, and it's completely out of the way, yet still close at hand.

The only thing I worry about is how the Softex seats will hold up and whether they will clean-up well with the recommended soap and water. We wanted the darker color but could only find the "bisque," so sooner or later they will show dirt. We'll see how that goes.

 

Thanks for the 6 month report. I’m at 1 month and 2,000 miles and glad to here the service visit went well for you. Mine is a 2012 trim 2 in Barcelona Red. I have to admit I haven’t used the radio enough to comment on it. I bought a 32 GB thumb drive and I am filling it with mp3 music. I am loving not having to carry my CDs in the hot car any more. My previous car had XM radio in it, but the Prius trim 2 doesn’t have that available. I have a work around though. If you have an XM subscription, you can add an internet subscription to it, and if you have an IPhone, you can download the XM Radio app and play it in the car through the Blue Tooth connection. This seems to work fine as long as you have a good 3G/4G signal. Keep us posted on your progress with the new Prius.

 

Thanks for the report. I am at 4 months and 3300 miles and unfamiliar with service quality at
Toyota dealers. I hope that in Manhattan they are just as good. I would echo most of your comments, but since I rarely have backseat passengers, can't speak to the vents issue. Nav and bluetooth work just fine, but too much touchscreen input with eyes off the road is required. For audio I mostly use either XM or the iPhone via bluetooth. My pet peeve (I've posted about this before) is the cup holder/console design. It's just stupid. I just bought a big piece of foam rubber and cut it to fit into the cup holder, with enough to extend up and tuck under the lip of the console cover. Not ideal, but it is an improvement.

Lots of people ask about the car. I have had no reason to complain. I like being a club member.

 

Later this month will be six months here as well. Very happy overall. Is the Prius perfect? No, but I doubt any car is. My old 2003 Baja had just an ok radio system. The rear folding seats were a pain to use at times. As for the Prius, there are things that I wish it had for the sticker price - visor extensions, like mentioned by others - AC vents in the rear and cupholders in the rear (other than in the fold down), sounds petty but a less tinny sound when the doors are closed - I know that this can be engineered in the design.

In the end the things that make up for all that is great use of the cabin for passengers and cargo, comfort of the ride, and getting two to three times the mpg's over my old Baja. A day out yesterday for breakfast, a museum visit, and some shopping (150 miles r/t running AC and keeping up with 60mph traffic at least) and still getting 60mpgs according to the MFD!

 

I also HIGHLY agree about the lack of rear A/C vents... Come on how hard is it to put some vents back there? I take my dogs everywhere with me and they are in the back seat and I can hear them panting. I have the front A/C set on 74 but they are still too hot back there. I had my windows tinted and I bought the baby window sunshade things for the back windows and it is still too hot back there for both my dogs and other human passengers.

 

I have never had a vehicle with back seat A/C vents; actually up until about 15 years ago, my cars didn’t even have A/C. So I would suggest…”Come on, how hard is it to lower you’re A/C a few more degrees, or to increase the fan speed a few notches, to make your back seat passengers comfortable?” I asked my kids if they were comfortable in the back seat on a hot day last week, and they said they were fine. The A/C was set at 74, with the fan at about 1/3 of its range, and some of the front vents aimed to the rear. The comfort of your passengers or pets is well worth a couple of MPG, even with running the A/C my fuel economy is still well over 50 MPG. If my dog was panting or my kids were uncomfortable, I’d drop it to 68 if necessary.

 

I do have the vents pointed straight towards the backseat. If I turn the air any lower my front passenger then complains. So it seems like there is no winning. I guess I am just spoiled that my last 3 cars have all had rear a/c vents including my 1998 4runner that my prius replaced.

 

I guess I come at it from the other direction. The A/C in my Prius Gen III blows away the A/C that I had in any of my GM vehicles. In my old cars, the A/C could keep the cabin fairly cool but it had to work hard to do it, in the Prius, I have yet to run it higher than about 50% capacity, and at that level the cabin feels like an ice box.

Are you running in ECO mode? If you are, it does run the A/C more efficiently, which reduces its cooling ability. You might try Normal or Power modes and see if that helps give you more cooling.

 

One car cannot satisfy everyone. For example, the cup holder is great. I am 6'2 so to get my elbow in here would require contortion, and moving the seat forward.