Glacer Blue T Spirit, 12 Sep 2004, Cambridge (UK)

Date Ordered: 12th September 2004
Dealer Ordered From (Incl. City/State): Leaseplan UK
Timeframe given for delivery: 4-6 weeks (that's just their general estimate for Priuses)
Color: Glacier Blue
Option Package: T Spirit
Your # on Dealer's Waiting List: n/a

Had to wait six weeks to get a full-weekend test drive, but it was worth it. Lovely car. Really smooth, and after growing up with manual transmissions, just being an automatic was luxurious. Plenty of space for us up front (we're 6' 1" and 5' 9"), and more leg-room than I've ever seen in the back (apart from the Mercedes limo we hired for our wedding!).

We got 55 mpg overall during the test, and it's going back to them with rather more fuel in than when it arrived, as it arrived practically empty, and I overestimated how much we'd use!

Very few complaints; visibility was better than I thought it would be, the steering and ride was fine, and the engine start/stop unobtrusive. The boot was rather shallow, but you can muck around with the tray, seats and cover as necessary to fit stuff in. It's annoying we don't get SE/SS in the UK.

Our test model was a Sileni Green T4. An interesting colour, quite classy, and a pleasant green in the right light, but on a grey, rainy day in England, it basically just looks grey & drab. We wanted something a bit more cheery. The Silver Steel is quite nice, but it's just light metallic gray, really, and looks a bit like someone forgot to paint the car in Japan. It's a bit common too - every other Prius seems to be silver. Aztec Bronze is just a shiny type of beige, and black's too heavy (and too much effort to clean). The Regency Red is darker than we like - a nice gloss flame red would be more the ticket.

So we've settled on the Glacier Blue, although we haven't seen one in real life. The photos I've seen on the web, and the dealers' colour sample looked nice though. Hopefully we haven't made a mistake.

We're getting this as a company car on a 4-year lease. Works out rather nice with the £700 grant (which the lease company pays to us), and a meagre 11% Benefit-In-Kind rate. Normal cars come somewhere between 15% and 35%, depending on CO2 emissions; any similar sized car would be around 25%. So that represents nearly a £5000 saving over a similarly priced conventional car over the 4 years, even before you think about fuel.

Don't know whether their database's 4-6 week estimate is realistic, but it would be nice to get it before Christmas.

 

We've had some amusement dealing with the leasing company. First we had to talk them through the procedures for obtaining the PowerShift grant; they thought it would take a few weeks, but the procedures have recently changed - you can now get an instant grant allocation from the TransportEnergy web site.

Having sorted that out, we were then told that they'd have to add a £311 alarm system to the car to meet the fleet requirements. A bit of research showed that the Prius does come with a Thatcham Category 1 alarm as standard, but it took a couple of days to persuade them of this - the dealer they were ordering from had told them it didn't have an alarm. :roll:

So, today they've ordered the car. It's coming from Inchcape Toyota in Derby, and the estimated delivery date is 7th February 2005.

I assume that'll be pretty precise, as I believe Priuses are factory-allocated in the UK. So, only 143 days to go...

 

Got the call on Friday - our new toy is going to be delivered this Thursday, so a little earlier than expected - a four month wait. Just hope the delivery driver manages to get it from the Derby dealer to Cambridge intact. :roll:

On Saturday, walking around Brussels, we managed to get nearly run over by a Prius pulling out of a garage. Far too quiet

 

It arrived this morning!

The Glacier Blue is a beautiful colour - richer and sparklier than I'd expected. We definitely chose the right colour. It looks fantastic.

The ICE seems somewhat noisier than in the car we test drove, but then it does only have 10 miles on the clock. :wink: I suppose we'd better wait until it's run in a bit.

We spent a quarter of an hour struggling with the nav system, but it's gradually becoming clear. The phone system worked first time with my wife's SE T630, and the phone book transferred easily. The signal strength indicator works fine, which pleasantly surprised me - I'd been under the impression from posts here that it pretty much never worked. Haven't had a chance to test the ringing yet.