Jerry's Evolving Thoughts on "new-to-me" Prime Premium

No lunch time photos today. I went out but I did not spend the extra time out in the rain.

 

That's not an unreasonable price. A typical alignment in a good shop is $90-$100, shops typically charge $12-$20 per tire for mounting/balancing.

 

I've cut open a lot of tires in my lifetime to examine them. Michelin's are routinely the highest quality and consistent quality. That's all I run on all my vehicles now. Michelin Premier A/S on an Outback, Pilot Super Sports on a Miata, Toyota crapola OEM on the Prime (which will get replaced with Michelins when they wear out at 30K).

 

Yep, found it when I drove the 16 miles round trip to the PO to pick up my new glasses. Car guessed I had 30 miles EV, said I had 14 left when I got home. I'd say that was a very good guesstimate.
ODO says 1212, 78.2 MPG, 39.27 hours, Avg speed 31 MPH, EV% 48
Trip B says 1212.0, 70.1 MPG, 39.33 hours, Avg speed 31 MPH, EV% 48

Pretty curious that Trip B is .06 hours more than the ODO.

Kinda sad, I think all versions of the Gen II had roller shades. OR maybe I don't know because all the Gen IIs we have had were the high end trim with navigation. The Prime Advance roller shade cassette is spring loaded as @Tideland Prius said. The Gen II cassette was not, it dropped down into the slots.

Smart phone! I broke down and got one 2 weeks ago, the battery in my old stupid phone wasn't holding a charge. Went to the deep south last week. Oddly (and I know less about my Smartphone than I do about my new car), I could Google stuff even without connecting to a WiFi network and the Data roaming was turned off. I'm sure y'all know this but you can do GPS navigation with the built in Google Maps and no data roaming. I have no idea how it does that but it was useful in the rented moving van.

And that doesn't stop useful navigation popups from showing? Confusing to lump (or title) popups for "how to start your car and put it in gear" *, "how to use cruise control" ** etc as "Navigation".

* Yeah, I know how, I've been driving a Prius for the last 15 years
** It was even the same in my 1995 Odyssey for Christ's sake, I DO NOT need to know how to set or resume

Am I missing something? I thought ALL Prii from Gen II on were hatchbacks.

ENTERS hybrid mode at 14%? That suggests you could run the battery to nothing if you were climbing a long hill. I thought it preserved the bottom regardless so as to keep battery longevity. Seems like 14% would be the equivalent of a Gen II "1 purple bar" and the engine would turn on to get it back to blue. Not often did I have less than 3 blue bars and would be moving without the engine kicking in and those times were creeping in accident traffic.

 

BTW Jerry, IIRC somewhere in this thread you mentioned a different "feel" when the engine was running vs running on EV. I agree, HV seems "heavy" in a fashion that I don't feel in EV.

 

I misspoke I have a 2017 Prius Two which Toyota has pseudo-branded as the Liftback to differentiate from the Prime.

So, Prime means first, but the Liftback was released first,

 

That is really odd. The miles, Avg speed, EV ratio are identical yet MPG is not and you seemed to indicate the discrepancy actually increased. If anything involving early drive error of some sort like prolonged idling without actual miles, the discrepancy should decrease. The time difference is also interesting although that could be just computer glitch or timer error. In theory, you could not have had longer time for travel than ODO time, but your car seems to have traveled 0.06 hour longer than the car's life span.

Yeah, as @Tideland Prius has shown us, it looks like we do not need any mod to accept Advanced roller shades into Premium or Plus trunk. It is a matter of just removing several hooks. That said, I still think roll-up shade is more cumbersome and not as useful as flexible one. Though it does look better.

 

Well you came in first because you came before! Bizarre naming. If you asked me I would say a Liftback and a Hatchback were the same thing. Adding Prime to the Prius name should be differentiation enough.

 

Not in a Prime thread.
I guess I should slink back to my proper forum...

 

Gracias!

 

The question is "does your car need an alignment?" Can you just ask your dealer to check the alignment first and if it does not need it, what the price for tire installation only?

 

OK I'm home & just checked. I misremembered. That area looks like the Prime.
I remember reading complaints from people with 2017.5 Two Eco saying there were no mounting points. I doubt that saved much weight...

I just saw a photo of the newer Two Eco. I think they just replaced the hinge clips with covers like @Tideland Prius showed us,

 

What OEM tires do you have? Mine came with Dunlop Enasaver A/S. It is an excellent LRR tire and gets fantastic mileage, but as most OEM tires are, it has very little tread life. I checked at Tirerack and this tire has only 8/32 inch tread when new. Mine are now at 20K, and 5/32 and 6/32. 4-5/32 is not so unreasonable if the former owner rode it aggressively as you have suggested.

 

When dropping off our (Gasp!) Hondas for service they’d always check the alignment in the reception bay and let you know if anything needed tweaking before embarking on the normal service. A big chain here also checks the alignment with tire purchases and gives a printed assessment of any deviations but will not perform adjustments.

Being a somewhat persnickety former gear head (backyard mechanic on my own toys) I’ve cringed watching some of their methods, so perhaps it’s best they don’t dabble in those waters.

Case in point, I’ve seen them throw a torque wrench down to the ground (can anyone say “recalibration”?) Many are either unaware or oblivious to the effect improperly torqued wheel logs/nuts can produce: the least of which is stripping or being so over-tightenefthat you’ll never be able to extract them roadside without a breaker bar. Moreover, improper/unequal torquing will cause warpage to the rotors which will eventually prematurely we’re out the pads and produce a pulsating feel when the brakes are applied .

 

Aaargh! Sorry for any typos or verbiage garbage above. My wife is shopping and I’m trying to do this on my smart phone while I sit in a rainy parking lot with a smart phone that turns out to be not so smart after all. (Auto correcting and then sending the darn message without my approval)

 

Yeah that happened to me when I had Toyota swap the summer/winter tires (on their own rims). Fortunately it was in my driveway when I went to do the same thing the next season change. At 78 ft-lbs (IIRC) I should be able to get the nuts off, needed a breaker bar except ... one of the PITA 'locking' nuts ripped. I put the other ones back on and took it to the dealer to 'fix' the problem they caused. BTW, I couldn't get the oil pan plug out either. Of course the service manager swore up and down that they torque to spec. Funny, I never have a problem getting the nuts off when I torque them.