New 2014 Prius 3 Owner

Just traded in my 5 year old Insight on a 2014 Prius 3 in Nautical Blue. Love the car so far - the only negative impressions are some of the interior materials. The fabric in particular is pretty cheap feeling (mouse fur), although that can always be upgraded thru 3rd party leather kits. I have ordered Husky molded floor mats and cargo liner from AutoAnything.

I had never driven a Prius before and was a little concerned before going to drive some today about the comments I have read relative to braking, acceleration, handling, etc. After a couple test drives, the dealer sending me off to lunch for an hour with it and the drive home, my impressions are ...

• The feel and response of the brakes seems fine to me
• The steering is slightly numbed out but I don't think it is a problem at all
• The handling is probably not quite as crisp as the Insight, but it is perfectly fine and the Prius certainly rides smoother and is quieter (primarily in wind noise). Both cars have Ecopia tires (I replaced the Honda tires last year) so that isn't a factor.
• The "geek factor" is great (retired software engineer) and the car is far more technically sophisticated than the Honda hybrids.
• I'm not sure what Toyota was thinking with the wheels - I may experiment with losing the covers, painting the weights black and using center caps. The wheels are the biggest downer on the looks of the car.
• The standard audio system sounds pretty good and the iPod integration is great.
• The voice control for phone dialing was a little dodgy the one time I tried it - it found the correct phonebook entry but also came up with another choice that had nothing to do with what I asked for. More testing is required.
• I thought the center instrumentation might be a problem but I adjusted to it almost instantly. I really like not having to peer thru the steering wheel.
• The beeping in reverse is really annoying

I really love the car and think it is a big upgrade over the Insight. It also doesn't hurt I got a nice trade-in on the Honda and a few thousand dollars off from the sticker on the Prius. Cash and end of the month seemed to be the magic words.

 

Dealer wanted to charge and wasn't interested in disabling the seatbelt frantic beeping either (safety feature - liability according to them). Picked up a Scanguage II from the local auto parts store, got the Gen III Xguage spreadsheet from here and did it myself today.

Found a snag/defect in the cloth door upholstery after getting the car home and took it back to the dealer today. They offered to pull a door panel from another car and swap or get the local leather installer to do a leather interior at their cost ($960 - usual price is $1599). I jumped on the leather deal since the cloth upholstery is crap IMHO.

I looked at a 4 with the faux leather but wasn't impressed, even ignoring the huge price difference. Dropping the car off Monday evening for new clothes.

Also ordered Husky floor and cargo liners