First long trip: lessons learned and observations

We drove down to Atlanta last week from Virginia, so it was a great opportunity to spend some quality time with my new Prius 4 and really get to learn the car.

The ride was terrific. The cabin was quiet with no unusal, weird, or annoying noises. Just about every new car I've ever owned developed some strange sound, but so far, so good.

I had no problem merging with busy traffic on I-95 and I-85. My Prius obviously is not as peppy as my previous car but it's still adequate and safe.

For the total trip, there and back, I averaged 50.8 MPG. I varied my speed, as recommended for the break-in period, between 65 and 75.

I'm really getting to hate that black frame across the rear glass. It seems to get bigger and bigger, the longer I'm in the car. At night, it's at the perfect height to block the headlights of any car following me, so I don't see them.

We were driving home last Sunday, so I thought I'd listen to the Falcons-49ers game on the XM. It was on Channel 126. Too bad my XM only went up to 122.

While I'm on the satellite radio, I'll mention that I've had a Sirius radio in my other car since 2004. There's some features from my old window-mounted unit that I really miss--the remote and the traffic function. The traffic function allows me to program the local traffic channel with a jump button. I press the jump button and the radio jumps to it whenever the local traffic starts broadcasting. On Sirius XM, the local DC traffic and weather is only broadcast every ten minutes and with this new radio I have to do a lot of searching to get to the right channel and then wait for the DC info. Not very user friendly. Maybe there's a simple way to do it and I just haven't learned it yet. It would be awfully nice if that was a Voice Command function. Again, maybe it is and smarter people on this list will educate me.

The Navigation was sort of comical and it's shortcomings have been pointed out by many people. I had my Garmin with me just to compare. I didn't need the GPS but I wanted to see how useful it would be. It made some very odd route recommendations, particularly when we got close to my Dad's house in Atlanta. The Garmin is a far better system, obviously, and has free lifetime updates and displays speed limits, which is really helpful at times. I could live with the Prius' nav if it were easier (and far less expensive) to update and they could make a few tweaks to it, i.e. display speed limits. It would be nice if Toyota could just do a deal with Garmin and or Magellan.

The heated seats are da bomb, according to my wife. I'd never had them before and that was one of the features my wife most wanted. They worked well.

The cruise control seemed to always slow the car's speed about 2MPH after I engaged it. Not a big deal--just something I'll have to get used to. It also didn't do a great job of maintaining engaged speed going uphill. We'd usually lose 3-4 MPH.

Pandora worked great and was a nice feature. I didn't try any of the other Entune apps. I have the system paired with an IPhone 4 with ios 6.0.1 and Verizon service. I never lost the signal along I-95 and I-85, though I wasn't listening to Pandora the entire time. I was also checking out FM radio, and playing Iphone playlists via bluetooth. All worked perfectly and the sound was great. On the way home we listened to an audio book via the Audible app on my Iphone and the BT connection.

I couldn't quite make it all the way to my destination on one tank of fuel. I'd like to see a bit bigger fuel tank, but I understand the need to keep the car's weight down. On the other hand, I know my wife is happier the tank isn't any bigger.

Leather seats (or faux leather) were comfortable enough. I have no complaints with them. It was a ten hour drive and I felt fine at the end of the trip. I'm 6 feet tall and my wife is 5'10". My wife was quite pleased with the passenger seat comfort.

Bottom line: the long trip did nothing to disappoint me. The biggest plus was the fuel economy, but the ride was also quiet and comfortable and the entertainment system and accessories were more than adequate . . . and I'm still a newb at learning all of the features. Hopefully some of the veteran's on the list will have some suggestions to simplify things, especially using XM. I love this car.