Finally got my Prius ... and I'm sick ...

My long awaited Prius finally came in last Wednesday. I found out when I checked my voice mail after getting off the plane back from Chicago; my wife had staked out the dealer since a prior delivery of my desired car was sold when I didn't get into the dealer in a timely manner. Its tough to show up with pitchforks and torches to beat off all the other potential buyers when you are 2,500 miles away!

So its here, and we go to Ventura Toyota to finalize the deal. A Package #3, in Silver Pine Mica with charcol interior. Very nice. It had 1 mile on the odometer.

The price was $78 more than the $23,966 I had seen at some dealers, and it was due to a different accessory package with the floor mats and cargo net. OK, after waiting this long, I'm not going to quibble over the $78. Dealer sold at the MSRP ($24,044), and gave me a pretty fair trade in for my 1998 Sienna Van considering the work that was needed.

The finance guy tried to sell me all sorts of things, and my nose started running. Not sure its connected, but I started sneezing "no thank you's" at him and he started speeding up the process a bit. I think this dealer makes money in the finance department ... first they showed us a ten minute video of all the products they were going to try and sell us, then they pitched each of those. "Paint Protection", "Fabric Sealer", "Disability Insurance", "Extended Warranty", "Pre-paid Maintenance Plan", and on and on. We had to initial by each one that we refused. He got the idea quickly that we were not going to buy any of them, but he took a second run at the prepaid maintenance plan, a sure sign that it paid the highest commission for him. Sorry pal. We bumped knuckles because I didn't want to infect him with my cold.

So I get the car, drive my wife home, drive to work, and I feel like I'm dying. Really bad cold. Start feeling nauseous. I don't want to be the first to post a "How to Clean Vomit From New Prius" thread, so I go home "early" (for me) at 5:30 pm. Come home and try in vain to read the Owner's Manual. Either its written in Japanese or my eyes are not focusing ... I go to bed at 8 with shivers and a fever that isn't breaking. LOML gives me something (I didn't care what it was, and if she was going to poison me, it was the perfect time to do so!) I wake up at 6:15 am and call one of my employees on the early shift to tell her I'm not coming in ... she told me if I did, they would mutiny and lock me out. I do a bit of email, walk downstairs and out to the Prius and sit in it a bit. Then I get dizzy and go back to bed around 8 or so, and get a call at 10, settle something between the Controller and the VP, and wander out to the new Prius. Really don't feel like driving. So I do some email, and go back to bed.

My first full day of Prius ownership I used absolutely ZERO gallons of gas! It stayed in the garage all day.

Today I was feeling better, so I drove it to Target, Pep Boys, and a local dealer in search of "accessories". Got a few nice micro-fiber cloths to get the lint off the dash, some generic chrome license plate frames, and looked at seat covers and floor mats at the dealer. Picked up the Prius All Weather Mats for the ridiculous price of $91 ... I know they will be cheaper somewhere else, but I was feeling deprived. They didn't have the GTCovers I want for the seats, so I'll order those on-line.

I enjoyed driving it, and parking, stepping out and touching the door handle black button to lock it. I enjoyed walking up, grabbing the door handle and having all the doors unlock. I enjoyed looking at the back up camera view, playing with the display, and driving around. Between the pick up day on Thursday (80 miles) and my short jaunts today, I have about 103 miles on the car, with an average of 47.3 MPG according to the display.

This is a nice car. I really like it. I'm not a "car guy", but I like this car.