Lurking no more

Hello everyone. I have been lurking for the past few weeks while awaiting my 2006 Prius, which I picked up today. This site has been incredibly interesting and helpful already.

I bought a blue (Seaside?) Prius with the HI package (all upgrades except leather, navigation, and high intensity lights). I paid about $100 under MSRP which seems to be about the norm in my location.

I was not even considering the Prius until a few weeks ago. I was (very happily) driving a 2000 Saab 9-5 SE. However, as most of you already know, they passed a law in NY that allows people with certain Hybrids (Prius, Civic, Insight) to use the HOV lane. I commute about an hour and 15 minutes each way every day and this will cut about a half hour off my commute. I sit every day and watch people in the HOV lane pass me by while I curse under my breath. I was never able to get into a car pool because I work erratic hours and usually don't know until 4PM if I am leaving at 5:30 or 7:30 (or in between).

Although I loved my Saab, this was a no-brainer. Getting home earlier to the family is priority number 1 and I went and bought the Prius the day after they announced the new law.

Since I am now a Prius expert (having driven it 25 miles) I can tell you that my initial impression is very positive. I had several concerns when I bought it, but was happily surprised. The main thing is how impressed I am with how small it looks from the outside, but how much room I have on the inside. I also love the smartkey system and the center console unit.

The only real negative so far is the limited rear view through the split hatchback. That will definitely take some getting used to.

The big surprise was that the car came equipped with Sirius radio. For some reason I didn't know a satellite radio was included. I get 9 months free (Radio Margaritaville, here I come!)

The salesman new woefully little about the Prius. He went over things like what the volume button on the radio means, but now how the center console works. Luckilly, I like to learn things on my own and I have also read most of the posts on this site going back about a year so I didn't make a big deal out of it. Although he did tell me to shift into B when I need more power and I know that this is totally incorrect. I live on a flat island, so I probably wont use B at all.

The only problem so far is that we were unable to get the stations and info to appear on the dash when using the Sirius radio. If you lock in a preset, it replaces the previous preset with the channel you are listening to and tells you the channel, but that seems to be the only way to find out what channel you are listening to. I am going to look at the Sirius website and see what I can find out.
I hope that made sense. I am suffering from lack of sleep because it's 12:45 AM and I was up until 2AM last night cleaning out my garage so I can park in it for the first time in about 6 years!

My posts should be less rambling when I get more sleep. Again, thanks for all the help you give to all the anonomous lurkers out here.

 

I'll keep the font down. Like I said, it was really late and I was really tired. I think I needed it to be able to see what I wrote! :blink:

 

Westbury Toyota

I live by Smithtown, and I sent E-mails to about a dozen dealerships. I am a good negotiator and usually don't pay much more then invoice on a car. Of course, I usually try to find a model that has a decent reputation, low demand and a lot of previous model cars leftover. I knew going in that the shoe was on the other foot this time. I was fortunate in that the dealership had the exact color car and options I wanted and I paid about $100 under MSRP, which seems to be the norm in my region right now. I had planned on being flexible with the exterior color (I wanted the darker interior) so as to avoid being put on a waiting list, but since they had the Blue (my first choice) with everything I wanted, I think I got pretty lucky.

 

That's the problem. When I go to the text screen, the name and artist info is always blank.

I noticed that the word antenna is flashing. I looked in the Prius manual, and I think the dealership might not have hooked up the satellite antenna correctly (I am only getting about 15 stations). I will bring it back to them and have them fix it.

 

I think the dealer added it themselves as a free add-on with 9 months included. The radio is in a small box to the right of the rear view mirror.