First 1000 miles... Impressions

Picked up my 2005 Salsa BC in Escanaba, MI on Saturday afternoon and drove back to NY over the last 2 days, around 1,150 miles all told. Impressions:

1. Handling: "Twitchy" in the wind. It was windy most of the way through Michigan and it surprised me how much the car wanted to move around. It definitely takes a while to get used to the (over?) responsiveness of the steering. One caveat: I wanted better tires than the OEMs that came with the car so I had the dealer put a set of Goodyear TriplTreds on the car. Now I wish I had waited until I got home so I could have compared the handling, ride and noise with the OEMs. I think I'll try to find another Prius owner with OEM tires here on Long Island who would be willing to give my car a drive and let me know what they think of the Goodyears.

2. Nav: Very strange routing that many times defied common sense. I think I need to start looking at the actual route listing for the three different routes and pick the best one that way. POI information was way out of date, at least for many parts of Michigan. I was looking for a motel near an I75 exit and the nav system knew about very, very few motels that were right there in plain sight. In addition, when you switch to "exit" information mode, where it shows you the upcoming exits and what's at each exit, many times the future exits would show as "calculating", sometimes for five minutes or more. And then once they were done calculating many of the exits that showed no POIs (hotels, gas, food, etc.) actually had many or all of those items. One thing that would be helpful to know is how far a POI can be from an exit before it's not considered for "exit display" mode. Anyone know? Oh, and voice nav is really hit or miss - lots of misrecognition.

3. Comfort: I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable I was in the car. I'm 6'4" and expected the Prius to feel cramped. It doesn't.

4. Performance: Much better than I thought. This little baby can really go when you need it to. It's no Porsche, but it sure holds its own.

5. Fuel economy. Nothing great compared to a lot of you, but I got around 43-44 MPG for the trip, most of it highway driving at 65-75 MPH.

6. Audio. Radio is OK, but I would have killed for XM on this trip. That's one option that will be added real soon.

Conclusion: I rented a Prius for a day before I bought mine and never noticed the wandering in the wind. And that's my only real complaint right now. Perhaps it's a tire issue or maybe just the nature of the car. As I said, I'm going to try to get in touch with another owner here on the Island and see if we can compare handling characteristics at highway speeds. Other than that, it's a great car. (But then you know that!)

Geoff

 

Unfortunately, yes. It's really "only" $799 + $160 doc fee, and that fell just below my threshold of pain for getting a car now vs. waiting and paying MSRP. In my area (Long Island) there are just no cars to be had. I even had two dealerships refuse to put me on a list. I suppose this will change some time next year when the allocations go up, but for now that's the way it is around here.

Geoff

 

Flew in to Escanaba on Saturday afternoon with my 9-year-old daughter and then drove back on Sunday and Monday, stopping at Niagra Falls for a brief visit. Great trip, and you just can't beat time with your kids!

Geoff

 

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No allowance on the tires, in fact, they charged me $50 to put the new onles on, despite my willingness to give them the OEM tires in exchange. Apparently Goodyear dealers won't take back OEM tires that are on the Prius and Scott said his dealership had no use for them. I ended up leaving the tires with Scott, and it's really my only disappointment with the transaction. I felt like they kind of nickled-and-dimed me on the tires, especially considering I had paid over MSRP. But again, to be fair, they did put the spash guards on that I sent, free of charge, so it's hard to get too upset over the tire thing.

As far as nav region goes, it was set correctly to the Michigan area when I was in Michigan, and then to Canada when I went through there on the way home, and then to NY region now that I'm back.

And yes, the transaction with Town and Country was a great experience (tires aside). All the paperwork was in order and after my obligatory hour wait at the NY DMV on Monday, the car's official.

Geoff