Converting to Prius - how did you come see the light!!!

Got a ride in my wife's 2004 Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 Life over the weekend - my goodness, wafting around (on air - or it sure as hell feels like it) in my Prius "Spaceship" for 6 months has certainly spoiled me rotten and turned me into an advanced automobile technology snob!!

Don't get me wrong, I've always loved her Corsa and considered buying one with a powerful engine, all mod cons - top of the range for myself - about a year ago. And now? Good heavens, no!

Terrible ride by Prius standards - and the noise! It's so blooming noisy...!!! The gear changes, the jolt from gear to gear, the resonating noise in the cabin.....it was soooo compact and almost claustrophobic in there.......did I mention the engine / transmission / exhaust noise? The infernal rumbling as it scrabbled for traction when accelerating?!!

Yup! It certainly brought ME down to Earth with a bump. Hybrid Synergy Drive versus conventional fuel guzzling archaic ICE. Definitely no contest!!! It's a nice enough car her Corsa is, but no thanks!! ⬇️


iPad ? HD

 

That's so interesting that your package six was advertised as base - mine was as well, and also priced accordingly. It was a small used-car dealership that did NOT know very much about the prius at all.

As for my story, I started looking for a car after moving out, and ~2500 miles away from my parents. I needed to be able to get around without relying on busy others for rides. My research initially started around the $5000 range looking at accords, camrys, corollas, and civics. I stumbled across a civic hybrid, and thought I was in love... only for my research to turn up some disturbing stories about reliability, as well as the inferior hybrid system that Honda uses (as an engineer, the IMA system just repels me when compared to Toyota's HSD). I started looking at Prii, and on a visit to a dealership discovered a ~92k mile, 2005 "base" model was actually a package 6. It had all the bells and whistles and was priced like a base model. It had also been garaged and well cared for by its previous owner, evident by the good condition of the exterior and especially the undercarriage. I've now put over 15k on it since late January. The only thing is I sometimes wish it were blue... but the brown is nice enough.

 

I was just cheap and tired of paying too much for gas. Now I'm on my second Prius and my wife has one, too! More money for us, less money for the world's dictators and terrorists. Simple!

 

I wanted something that had low annual road tax.....tick....€190 p/a
Automatic....tick....I do alot of city driving here in Dublin
A/c....tick
5 dr.....tick.....Prius II
Low fuel consumption.....tick.....50+mpg

Do I get stick from friends, family and colleagues, yes, but I don't care as I have more money in my pocket beacuse of my choice of car

 

Had a Tundra. Went to ASU for Mechanical Engineering in 2007. Bought my first Prius on March 4, 2008 after looking at it from an engineering perspective, got me into the whole hybrid and EV thing and now I am working for Tesla...dream come true you could say

 

Wish you the best in your new career. ME is my Son's chosen Major, year and a half in and counting.

 

Further to earlier posts, I was rather privileged to one day in May 2013 get a ride home in a Prius Gen II. Two sisters were giving me a lift home so I got to sit in the back. I believe it was a T Spirit as it had the SAT NAV installed - it was a 2006 I believe.

My delight when I stepped outside the house and saw this magnetic grey ship awaiting went off the scale! I hopped on board and she drove off. She drove the Prius like any normal car - in fact I suspected she didn't have the foggiest clue what an advanced piece of technology she was driving. She literally flew everywhere without any perceived thought about economy.

I was immediately impressed with how quiet it was and how smooth the ride was. I gushed endlessly about how impressed I was about this type of vehicle, so maybe this spurred her on to show me how fast it was.
She zoomed up hills, flew down the other side, and didn't seem to really exploit the economic virtues of the HSD.

However, despite her driving technique - she overtook anything and everything on the three lane highways - I was able to glean enough data about how good the car was. Braking was simply so smooth and phenomenal when needed. Acceleration was equally smooth and unparalleled. The total lack of a shifting gearbox gave the impression I was riding in something from the 24th century that didn't have tyres! During the few moments she had to cruise with built up traffic, it was like riding on a magic carpet - apart from tyre noise, the vehicle was silent and surprisingly vibration free. And anytime we stopped, there was complete silence apart from the faintest hum from the electronic climate control systems. On reaching my neighbourhood with a full battery, she now dropped into stealth mode because of the narrow roads - and while I gave her directions to the location of my abode. She silently pulled up - and with a certain degree of elation mixed with sadness that the ride was up, I climbed out of the Prius T Spirit and bade them farewell. Then stood and watched as she poked at the home button on the navigation screen and swiftly, silently glided around the corner out of sight!

That single ride in a car I had been studying online - mostly via Priuschat for weeks (month or three?) definitely had a major role in making up my mind what my next car would be!
Why does anybody really drive anything else?

Nexus 7 ?

 

Long-time lurker; been driving a TDI Golf for 10 years; best car I ever owned. I'm a mileage geek, so when I got the opportunity to go to the dark side and get a GenII Prius for cheap, I jumped at the chance. I have a couple of coworkers driving GenIII's and my aunt had an '05 for a few years, and I've never heard a complaint, so I jumped in.
An '04 with 47,000 miles for $4,300 including a full service by the Toyota dealer and a new 12-volt battery, and everything checks out OK. A couple of dings on the right rear quarter panel and a missing trim ring, but other than that, it's perfect. The interior looks brand new.
No nav or bluetooth or anything, but it's for my daughter who just turned 16. Neat car, especially for the price.
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Update:
47.5 and 47.2 on the first 2 tanks. What a cool little car.
Woohoo!! I have to work REALLY hard to get 47 MPG in the Golf.

 

Conservation and efficiency. I regularly explain to people that current Prii (I, II, III & IV) are only intermediate steps.