have to gush a little... and a question or two

Ok, so I only got the car on Friday night and have been so busy the past two days that I've only gone 190 miles in it... Yesterday I finally had the chance to actually be in it and drive a while.

I am so delighted!

One of the things I thought I was going to be dealing with was a bit of diminished carrying capacity ... I do photographic exhibitions and several times a year I have to carry 20 or more 16x20 inch framed photographs plus all the equipment necessary to do a gallery installation, which take up a lot of space. Yesterday I had one of my installations to do...

To my surprise, the Prius load area was capable of swallowing all the pieces, the bag of installation equipment, the rolling cart, and other miscellanea *without even flipping the rear seats down* !!! This shocked me. That's even better than my SUV did!

The quiet, smooth ride, excellent climate control, comfortable seats, great sound system all together made the 70 mile round trip flash by without a thought. AND according to the monitor, I achieved more than double the MPG of my previous vehicle (about 44.5 mpg) without even thinking about it or doing any special driving tricks. After 190 miles, I'm down about 1/4 tank on the gauge from full ... This is remarkable. The previous car had a bigger fuel tank (15 gallons) and would be down by about 3/4 tank at this mileage, I'd be looking to refill it in the next 30-40 miles at most.

This is more than impressive. It's fantastic! Now I understand why these cars are sold out with long waiting lists.

Now for my questions:

On the road it seems to wander a little bit and the steering wheel is slightly turned to the left when driving dead straight on level roads. I presume this is just a minor alignment adjustment. Anyone else had one behave like this?

Is there any way to turn off the display from the steering wheel? I would really like to be able to check the consumption chart and then turn it off again without having to reach over to the display button and then hit the 'screen off' button as it is a little distracting from time to time.

Similarly, is there any way to have the system remember my non-auto climate control settings when I cycle it from off to on with the steering wheel buttons? I find the Auto setting runs the fan higher and longer than I feel necessary and usually end up going to the Climate screen to knock it down to low before the system does, it would be nice to make that the default.

Overall, I have to say that I'm utterly delighted with the car and glad I went for it. It cost me a bit but I think overall it will reduce my vehicle expenses substantially as well as support my notions of environmental consciousness.

Godfrey
--- it's name is "Heart of Gold" - A spacecraft with the fabulous Improbability Drive ---

 

Thanks for your comments.

It's unfortunate that the climate control defaults and the screen off control cannot be done, but it is just a minor inconvenience.

Regards the steering question:

Since the car is brand new, I don't think I need tires any time soon but it's good to know what the options are. I'm not sure about running such high tire pressures ... Steering feel means a lot to me and I have only rarely found that running much more than 2psi over recommended tire pressures does anything particularly advantageous in normal operation on the road, but it kills the steering feel and makes the car feel like it's skating on ice.

Interesting page on suspension alignment, a good presentation overall. I'm fairly cognizant of what it's all about and how it works from several years of being a mechanic and hanging around the race tracks ... although that's fading into the far distant past now. I'm off to check tire pressures and be sure it's set up correctly this morning, then I'll evaluate the steering and wander again. If it still wanders and the wheel is still slightly crooked, I'll have the dealer do an alignment. I was really more interested in people's consensus of how the car is supposed to feel, as it's very new to me...

There's an excellent tire/alignment shop a block from my apartment that I know the dealership uses, they've done customized suspension work for me before, so if worse came to worse I'd just bring it to them and have it adjusted to my specifications.

thanks again! It is a wonderful car, I'm very happy with it. Nothing I've mentioned here is anything other than normal "new car sorting out" stuff.

Godfrey

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(brandon @ Aug 14 2006, 10:57 AM) [snapback]303084[/snapback]</div>

Interesting! I was unable to get that to work though ... Do I need to register my phone first? I haven't set up the hands free stuff yet.

Godfrey

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jbarnhart @ Aug 14 2006, 07:03 PM) [snapback]303293[/snapback]</div>

I checked tire pressure and found that the tires, all four, were pumped up to over 40psi. Dropping the pressures to 36/34 made the steering feel better, but the wheel is still crooked. They're going to take care of the alignment on Wednesday morning.

The BT Brace sounds interesting. Sometimes these kinds of small things work wonders, sometimes what you "feel" is a placebo effect. For instance, on my '92 Ducati 900SS I always felt it was a little "loose" at the limits. A machinist friend of mine, also a Ducati enthusiast, made a set of much closer tolerance engine bolts. We fitted them as an experiment ... and they DEFINITELY worked well: the whole bike felt tighter, more sure footed. . The difference in the fit was about 0.002" and the steel he used was a better grade than the stock bolts ...

So mayhap I go for one.

Godfrey

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bill Merchant @ Aug 14 2006, 11:26 PM) [snapback]303396[/snapback]</div>

Hmm. I'll try again today. What is the "KB" ?? And where in the Owners Manual are the voice control features listed? I had a difficult time finding anything.

thanks again!

Godfrey



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(captnslur @ Aug 15 2006, 08:36 AM) [snapback]303524[/snapback]</div>

Thanks for your thoughts.

I'm used to driving sports cars with very high sensitive steering ... my Alfa Romeo Spider and Toyota MR2 ... so I am used to cars that move with the barest light touch on the steering. That's not it in the case of the Prius 'wander".

Resetting the tire pressures to closer to factory recommendation (36/34) improved the steering feel and reduced the sense of wandering, at least to my perception. Better tires would probably improve it yet again but I'm a little ambivalent about spending the time and money to change tires on a brand new car. I think I'd rather put that money into buying the BT Plate and the Platinum Coverage extended warranty, use these tires up and fit better ones when I've gotten the value out of them.

Of course, test driving Joe's car might change my opinion on that... ;-)

Godfrey

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bps @ Aug 15 2006, 03:59 PM) [snapback]303784[/snapback]</div>

thanks ... that is most likely the issue. I didn't want the nav system, more precisely, didn't feel the need to pay for the nav system... ;-)

Godfrey