My Prius is now how it should have been from Toyota - BETTER

That list doesn't really seem contain anything that would be a deal breaker to me - most people seem to make just as many little mods. (BTW, I agree that your tweaks definitely improve the car.)

If you had to pick the one thing from your list that would have prevented you from buying the Prius, what is it?

 

"terrible wiper blades"???

I've had my Prius for a week now. Much of that time has been rainy, particularly the last two days. Yesterday was horrible.

The wipers do a FANTASTIC job, and there's no whistling anywhere as I drive.

?????

 

Cheap it is hard to believe that we both have the same car. These have to be the best wipers I have had on a car yet, love the way they clear the entire windshield, nice and quiet, the handling is terrific, so far about 3000 miles and I am totally pleased. Hopefully it will grow on you.

 

Please pardon my ignorance, but what does the +.05 toe on the alignment do for the vehicle??

p.s. glad you like it better now.... it sucks to be stuck with a car you really dont like to be in, and to drive....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rangerdavid @ Mar 24 2007, 12:26 PM) [snapback]411482[/snapback]</div>

I took mine on faith.

It's a company car, and I had my choice of about a dozen vehicles--a mix of GM, Ford, Toyota, and they threw in a Chrysler van as well. I do pay a personal use charge every month, and the low end charge had two vehicles available: a Chevy Mailbu and a Prius.

I had never sat in a Prius, let alone driven one. Hell, I hadn't even looked inside one with the doors open. But I did know two things:

a) GM is GM, and nothing will ever change there, and they have a very weird idea of how to build a car; and

B) I've driven Hondas all my life, except for the last three years I drove a 94 Lexus ES with high miles. Hondas and Toyotas overall, the entire line, are great cars. That Lexus is the perfect car--it fits like a glove, the air blows cold, the radio is great, and it never lets me down. Ever. And my mom bought a Scion xB last year, and it's a great car as well.

Based on those two things, I said, "I'll take the Prius." Yeah, it took a couple extra months to get here. And yeah, it's a base model (more on that later).

I picked it up last Saturday, got the two minute "here's how you make it go" demo from the fleet manager, and drove home. I was about two miles out when I said to myself, "Ford deserves what they get." I mean, the Prius is exactly the same experience as the Lexus I have: fits like a glove, everything works the way it should, everything is where it should be, no surprises, just high quality and great value. If Ford and GM die horrible deaths, I won't mourn them. Shame on them. Obviously it's not impossible to build a car that makes a person feel like I did, but Ford would have you think it is.

I don't care that it's a hybrid, frankly. I don't pay for gas. All I cared about was that it was the cheapest car I could get on my company's plan, and it was a Toyota. And Toyota didn't let me down, not one bit. There is not a single thing wrong with the car.

To the point of this thread, I was afraid that I would be "stuck" with something I really didn't like. I have seen the threads where people complain about the seats being uncomfortable/painful, etc. I was beginning to worry a bit. Ha! I put my faith where it was deserved, in a Toyota product.

Not to mention, it drives as well as or better than any of the sports/sporty models of cars I've driven over the years. I had a Jetta VR6 that, handling-wise, the Prius on those stupid stock tires can outhandle--and out-turn, too. The Prius can turn on a dime. U-turns are no problem.

Regarding it being a base model: I must be getting old, because even the base model has everything I'd ever ask for in a car (well, almost). Sure, I'd like to have nav, leather, sat radio--but I add my own sat radio and nav easily enough, and I can live without the leather given the sweet company car program I'm in.

But now the problem is that my wife loves driving it, and the miles are free, so she's driving it all over whenever I'm not--and all too frequently forgetting to put the seat back. That makes me really want power seats with memory that is keyed to the individual car key, so the seats can set themselves depending on who unlocked the car (like Cadillac does). Ah, well.

 

Hi All,

Well, I bought my Prius knowing (from reading on here) that there was a probable glitch in the handling. And also there was a cheap fix - the BT Tech plate. This gave me confidence to buy the car with only a short test ride 40 mph max speed test drive, mostly straight.

I agree with CheapChic on the handling.

From what I have read on PC, the Prius has a 0 +/- .05 degree toe-in spec. Cars usually come with a positive nominal, and tolerarnce, so that the tire is always positive in the static alighment. This is probably the source of the handling problems, along with the rear end flex steering.

The purpose of toe-in is to compensate for the bearing play. The Bearing play is very small, but multiplied over the distance to the front of the patch from the small radius of the bearing components, significant (although small) angular variation can occur in the direction of the tire as its loaded by the rolling resistance and motive torque. If the tire goes through the zero toe-in (ie changes from plus to minus or visa versa) during a drag to accellerate change (such as accellerating past the apex in a curve), the required steering input to keep the car on track can be radical. And in a curve, that may require a very quick radical steering input. Some people call this twitchy steering.

Typically, toe-in is set statically positive (tire planes intersecting in front of the car), so that as the bearings are loaded by drag, the tires allign closer to parallel with the direction of travel. Thus cruising tire drag is lower. At slower speeds, however, this results in some extra drag. Its been hypothesized on PC, that this is the reason for the toe-in spec, to reduce that low speed drag and improve mileage.

The only car worse than my stock Prius was a 1980's Ford Thunderbird(the Iacocca style squared off version), which was horrendous. The Thunderbird was ready to swap ends as soon as the road got even the mear hint of a sheen to it ! And you could feel it in your butt. The rear of the car fealt like it was rizing up with even mild dynamic forces.

With the BT Tech plate, my Prius has very consistent stable steering, and low reaction to heavy cross wind gusts. Its really an amazing change for how simple the the plate is. I did not change tires at that time, or have an alighment.

One thing you learn about steering the Prius, is not to do the normal small changes in wheel position, that one would do to compensate for play in the steering. The Prius seems to have feedback in electric steering, that does these small changes automatically. This takes a little bit if effort to unlearn. If all cars had as good steering as the Prius, we would not have learned this in the first place, however. But, before the BT Tech plate was installed, I would have never have had this opinion.

 

One thing that I noticed right away about the Prius--it's a car. Just like you'd expect. There's nothing to learn or unlearn.

Now, maybe someone who was used to driving GMs or BMWs over the years would have some adjustment to do--but not me. Hondas for the last 27 years, plus the aforementioned Lexus, is all I've driven. We still have two Hondas in the family.

And there is not the first bit of "adjustment" needed to move from my father's 98 Odyssey to my wife's 02 Odyssey to my 94 Lexus to the Prius. My guess is, all those cars had it "right" the first time out.

There is one bit of behavior in the Prius that I compare to getting multifocal lens glasses for the first time. There is a bit of a rubber-bandy behavior at times, I think usually on the freeway in more or less steady state driving, that is no doubt the result of: (1) the throttle not being connected directly to the engine, and (2) the fact that both the engine and the electric motor are working simultaneously. My body is simply attuned to what usually happens when my foot moves the throttle a millimeter or two, but the Prius's software isn't doing that same thing.

It's not aggressive, it's not objectionable, it's just a bit different. And like with multifocal lens glasses, I'm sure my body will adjust to that fairly quickly to the point where I never feel it anymore.

But overall, it's just a car. Anyone could get in and drive it and never have a problem. And the steering is just like my Honda and my Lexus.

 

What a way to nitpick. The positives far outweigh the 'negatives'. A lot of that is cosemetic, or doesn't improve the performance at all. XM Radio? Does that come standard on any car? I'll take listening to my albums in full on my iPod over XM any day.

 

I can't even imagine someone complaining about the windshield wipers on a Prius. I was very impressed at how well they work!

It seems many people want to hold the Prius up to a higher standard. Well, go ahead, the Prius sets the new higher standard! I'm talking about things that really count: fuel economy and low emissions!

Harry

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(donee @ Mar 24 2007, 09:43 AM) [snapback]411509[/snapback]</div>

I do not know... Maybe I'm not that fussy, or maybe it's because my prior car was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, but I think the Prius handling is GREAT! I feel no need for toe-in adjustments or the BT plate. I've driven it 10K+ miles and have had it 10 months, and I've had it on a 2000+ mile road trip (last Summer) over all kinds of roads, and I haven't anything about the handling to complain about.

About the ONLY thing I don't like is the squeaky passenger seat (when it's empty). I've had my dealer fix it twice, and it seems better afterward, but eventually the squeaks come back.

Compare to all the positives, that's a very minor nit, though.

 

try putting the seat all the way back, then a few clicks up, and it should stop rattling

 

Hi Adam1991,

Actually, its probably because I am not used to driving BMW's etc. The cars I have driven had rack and pinion steering, some with speed senstative hydraulic power assist, others without power assist. When you drive down a crowned road and go from one side of the crown to the other, a slight counter steer up-crown was needed to keep going straight. You could also feel this in the steering, and counter steer based on feel. Just push against the way the force from the wheel. More wheel force, more driver steering force.

As the Prius has the electric steering (apparently with feedback control), it seems like the steering takes care of this by itself. If you counter steer, you actually change direction in the Prius. The steering wheel is much more of control input rather than a feedback loop tuner. The feedback loop is in the car, and the driver can concentrate on where he/she wants the car to go. I know this is technically better, having tuned up control loops on motion control equipment. It is different, however than the cars I have driven previously. Attempting to counter steer may actually cause PIO (Pilot Induced Oscillations) with a Prius.


The Opel Manta I had actually seemed to have calibrated counter steer. As the car would tilt, if you maintained the wheel horizontal to the horizon, the car went straight. The amount of counter steer needed seemed to be set to the amount of tilt of the road! It was a very easy car to run straight down twisted and variably crowned farm roads here in Illinois.

The Prius is the first car I have driven with electric steering. But the Honda Accord has this. Possibly the other Honda you mentioned does too?


Hi Kimgh,

Well, like I said the Prius has the 0+/- .05 degree spec. If yours arrived from the factory at +.025, which is still in spec, and the bearings were tight enough that under load it did not go negative, the situation might be somewhat different.

As far as the back end wiggle the BT Tech plate addresses, its definatelly there. All it takes to realize this is your typical midwest spring gust (10 to 40 mph broadside change in wind speed in less than a second). As the wind impacts the side of the car you get all that wiggle sensation through the seat of the pants. It takes about 3 to 5 seconds to damp out. In the meantime the car is steering back and forth in sympathy with the wiggles. This is kinda like a SUV.

Now, put on the BT Tech plate, and the same gust will make a 1/2 second thudlike vibration, much higher frequency, and damped quicker. There is little effect on the cars direction. The car does roll a little bit, however.

 

It doesn't work that way with mine. I tilt the steering wheel a bit to counter the crown in the road.

Wheel alignment affects this behavior; perhaps your wheel alignment is different than mine?

I seriously doubt it has feedback control that knows the car is on a crown and automatically turns the wheels while keeping the steering wheel straight. I absolutely would have noticed that, much like I notice the rubber-bandy feeling of the gas pedal not being connected to the engine.

 

I WOULD HAVE NOT BOUGHT IT, IF I DID. TO LATE NOW. :huh:

Anyway, now with my recent improvements, I now like my Prius. I would love it if not for the Navigation, lockout as you drive feature.

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What's wrong with the Goodyear tires? Mine are preforming just fine. I rotate them regularly and keep the tire pressure set properly (42/40). At 8700 miles they seems to be holding up well. Yes, I plan to replace the wheels with 16 inchers, when these tires wear out.

I put the BT plate in, too, with a noticeable improvement in handling and crosswind tolerance. The new shark fin antenna works great and looks nicer that that silly whip. I have factory (installed by me) XM, and Sirrius, pluged into the audio port in the hatch. Both work well, but I wonder what will happen when (and if) Sirrius takes control of XM?

Has anyone seen a Touring Prius on the road? I have not, yet, nor have I seen one at any dealer. The dealers in the SoCal area seem to have 5-6 Prii on the lot at any given time, and are not highballing them. 'Bout time.....

 

As much as I enjoy my Prius and find the performance adequate, I realize it is what it is, which is a regular sedan/hatch, not a sports car/coupe by any stretch.

Comparing the cornering ability of the Prius with my previous car (1996 Integra LS) was no match - the 'teg had much more rigid suspension and could corner with less "sway" and stick the road a bit better IMHO - and that was with OEM suspension that was 10 years old and over 187K miles under it's belt! That car was a tank, just incredible...

Aside, I do realize the stock Integrity tires are frankly sub-par and plan to upgrade when they are finished as well as add the stiffening plate, so I am not too concerned about the handling. Besides, I am moving into the phase of life where I should be more 'responsible'.

Anyway, don't get me wrong - I am not trashing the Prius, just giving an honest opinion based on my personal experience. I wouldn't trade my Prius for any other car on the market today.