A couple of quick comments after my first 1,000 miles

Nice comments.

Our Prius is at 2000mi now, but it feels like we just hit 1000 a few days ago.

I am 6'2" and while I find the interior room plenty I find my legs cramped a bit even with seat full back. In fact my knees still poke upward and my thighs not supported. This leads to back pain for every drive over 1hr. And also find lack of right foot support when cruise control in on a problem. I can't tuck it near seat since it needs to be somewhere near brake. So I get stressed hovering it near accelerator/brake.

I didn't need the Nav system either, but on another thread someone was mentioning a option for voice control (!). That would be great as I often find myself looking at touch screen to adjust AC, etc. and sometimes it can't be read because of glare. The dealer never really went over options with me as they said it was first come first serve and you get what they serve

I have mis-closed trunk before as well.

Agree on speed. You can quickly get up to 45mph and not really realize it.

Never had a problem with headlights - maybe yours are adjusted wrong?

We had 52mpg on first tank and 51mph on second. I never tried to conserve energy, but also was on flat city roads for the first two tanks.

Al

 

Tom,
If you want to make SURE the hatch is closed, just lock the car with any of the handy black buttons as you leave. Instead of a pleasant beep, your Prius will blast you with LOTS of them, telling you a door isn't closed. If dropping the hatch from whatever distance isn't cutting it, lower it to almost closed, then push down on the Toyota emblem to close it.
Reguarding the HIDs. I think I have been flashed ONCE in 2.5 months. EVERY morning for me is 'drive in the dark' plus at least 3 times a week at night.

Either yours aren't aimed right or the people in your area haven't seen many HIDs and are fooled by the brighter, blue white light.

The things that kill me are big pickups and SUVS with low beams and BIG fog (or are they driving??) lights.

 

FYI, the '04-'05 Prius hybrid battery is 202 volts DC (plus or minus 1 volt, depending on your rounding up or down!). The inverter under the hood (rightside silver-looking box, can't miss it) converts that 202 DC voltage to 500 volts AC. The motor(s) use that 500 volts AC to turn the wheels or generator. Lots of websites out there to explain in more detail what is happening with your tech marvel called Prius. Try these: http://home.earthlink.net/~graham1/MyToyot...PriusFrames.htm
http://john1701a.com/
Hope this helps. Enjoy the new Prius. I still have that giddy feeling after 17K!

 

Nice write up of 'first' impressions. I too find that one needs to 'slam' the hatch in order to shut it and keep it shut. But if she likes it that way, who am I to deny my Preto Prius... er.... anyway, I have no problem with fitting in the car either (6'2"), no problems with leg room. Especially compared to my previous cars.

Love it, love it, love it!!

 

Yup, just give the trunk a good hard yank (I use the handle on the inside), and slam it closed. I was only getting improper closes when I was trying to baby it too much . As another poster has mentioned, if you press the outside lock button, the car will give you a long "beep" to let you know it's not shut properly.

As far as headlight flashes, I've only got flashed once in Vancouver, but I was getting flashed left and right while driving in Washington State.

Since the headlight alignment is correct, I assume people are just not used to how much light cars with newer headlights throw (they're BRIGHT). I just give them a tap of the beams to let them know how lucky they are that I'm on "low"

Dave.

 

itoo find that i get flashed at a lot here in tennessee. it could be that in my neighborhood they arent used to cars with BOTH headlights working! :lol:

 

Both motors also function as generators. There is no separate generator.

 

I just finished 1000 miles on mine.

I am averaging 46 mpg on this third tank; was getting about
47.5 until the weather turned colder.

A very strong impression I have is that my commute (6 miles)
is too short for best gas mileage. Any trip over 10 miles, I get over 50.

This matches the fuel consumption graph too - the first five minutes
are under 25 mpg, the next 5 are right at 50, and the last 5 are about 75.
This is all on city streets, avg speet 35-40.

But so what - the pleasure this car gives me (with xm radio) makes the
mpg not very important. It is a wonderful commuter car.

Robert

 

As far as the headlights, mine was delivered with the aim WAY too high. I found a bodyshop with a VERY expensive digital headlight rack, and they were able to crank the headlights to perfect horizontal and vertical.

It made a huge difference driving at night. Literally a day and night difference.

I've never had a car or pickup with the headlights properly adjusted from the factory. My 2000 GMC Sierra was the worst, the headlights were too low AND cross-eyed.

For the cost ($45 CDN) to properly adjust headlights, it's quite foolish not to at least check them. You should never have to touch them again unless you've had front-end damage or headlight damage.

 

Do you have HID headlamps?

 

Jayman

Interesting note about the headlight pointing. I find my low beams go out pretty far, but my highbeams are so high that the view is not really improved.

And lots of people beam me when I have my lows on. Especially if I have people in the back seat.

I mentioned this at my first service interval at the dealership, but I didn't notice any difference afterwards.

Can you give more details about the digital headlight alignment tool at the body shop. I'll look into in in my town.

thanks

b

 

Bill:

I think the digital headlight aiming machine is made by hunter.

You have to drive the car/truck into a dedicated stall. The floor must be perfectly flat and there are tracks the wheels must be on. At the front of the vehicle is a rail that is perpendicular with the tracks, and the machine rolls on this rail.

The machine has a large input screen that can check headlights (Including European-style "smooth" headlights), driving lights, and fog lights. A laser is used to determine the windshield center, driver field-of-view center, headlight height, etc etc. At each determined measurement, the coordinates are stored in memory.

The technician then aligns the machine with the headlight center, turns the headlights on, and the machine tells him if the headlight is too high, too low, left or right of "true" center, and even if the lumen output is too low.

New headlights, especially those by Japanese and European companies, are light years better than headlights from even 10 years ago. The reflector technology is much improved, so the beam pattern is much better. You may notice the beam pattern is very well defined, with a sharp cutoff.

That said, if the headlights are misaimed, especially too high, you can really dazzle other drivers. This problem is MUCH worse with HID headlights.

Old fashioned gadgets, most likely the one that may have been used by your Toyota shop, are supposed to clamp to the headlight. A spirit level is used to indicate if the headlight is aimed right. This is really obsolete technology.

First of all, the gadget needed to be aligned with the 3 dots on the headlight. Remember old rectangular and round headlights? They had 3 dots in the glass face, that was to accept the gadget. It was a North American thing.

Second, a lot of the alignment depended on guesswork on the part of the tech, especially left/right. You were better off using the old-fashioned method of measuring up from the floor and putting a piece of tape on your garage door.

I had my headlights aimed over a month ago, and even with the shorter days, have not had anybody flash their highs at me.

All I can suggest is to check out the larger bodyshops and see if any of them have a digital headlight aiming gadget. If you ask them how they aim the headlights after a major front-end repair, and they give you that "deer in the headlights" look, leave at once.

 

There is a noticeable difference in my car from low to high. The HID high beams are the same bulbs with a little 'shutter' lifted up. If you can see the trees better on high rather than further down the road, it doesn't sound right to me.

Also, the lights are supposed to be autoleveling - ie. make an adjustment for when there is extra weight in the rear. I'm sure range for which they can compensate is fairly small, you aren't supposed to put 3000 pounds in the back after all, just people.

I think it is time for a second opinion at the service bay. Or at a different place.

 

Only on models equipped with HID.

 

Right, I assumed he has HID, I don't think non HID Prius owners have reported 'flashing'. If Tom's aren't HID, they must be REALLY out of whack.

 

Don't follow the comment about people in the car. The lights should adjust for that and be just as good or just as bad if they are off.

I tested mine by sitting on the back with the hatch open and the lights went upward. Then 3 seconds later the leveler adjusted them back down.

Mine seem about right, and the line between dark and light goes right across at the horizion sort of. On a level road a driver in another car would clearly be in the dark part of the beam.

When the high beams are on the upper part lights all the way to the tree tops!

 

I don't normally have a full load of passengers, but on the way back from thanksgiving dinner we had 5 in the car.

The drive back was a little over 2 hours on a fairly busy highway, and literally every second oncoming car would flash their highbeams!! I was frustrated. Autolevelling must not have fully compensated, IMHO.

With just 2 or 3 occupants we still get "beamed" but not nearly as often.

I will discuss this with my service manager when I'm in next week.

 

Actually I seem to have exactly opposite problem. My long lights are not good enough. I drive quite a lot through cornfields here in N. IL, in total darness all alone on the road, so I get to use these quite often.

My Corolla I used to drive gave me a whole lot better long lights. Yes, I do have the high discharge lights option. The short lights seem to be great, but the long lights just suck.

 

Several of the posters who are complaining about being flashed are Canadian. As far as I know, Prius models sold in Canada do not have HID. I suspect that those do not have the auto leveling system either.