New prius owner with a Q

welcome! sorry, i can't help with your alarm question, but i can tell you the mpg's will improve as the car breaks in, and you spend some time here reading threads on improving mpg's. all the best!

 

They sat us down with a separate salesperson who made all those options sound good-paint sealer, upholstery protection, undercoating, and extended warranty ($2500 for that one alone). I took it all to a trusted guy who has handled our repairs for many years-a Honda/Toyota specialist. He said we didn't need any of it, so we said no to all those options and saved ourselves a bundle. Instead of paint sealer, he recommended Insulator Wax, which I bought. It is applied a couple of times a year.

 

I had the same alarm discussion when I bought mine. As an example of why they aren't included by default; I was SO HAPPY to be able to say no to the alarm, and the salesman seemed really surprised I didn't want it. I've owned used cars in the past and they always have those darn alarms. In my opinion they are utterly useless. In a big city nobody pays any attention to car alarms going off because they go off CONSTANTLY. And any decent thief can disable one within a few seconds anyway. My guess is that 99% of the time when you hear a car alarm going off its because of some mistake the owner made; or nearby vibrations -- a false alarm.

The only thing the alarms have done for me is go off accidentally in our garage and deafen me; or once when one had a "bug" it disabled my car while driving on the interstate! That time it refused to shut down until the battery was dead and my wife had to drive 30 miles to rescue me.

At one point I went to the dealer and asked them to just remove the alarm system on one of my cars (a Mazda). I would have gladly paid a lot for that. They said so many wires are cut and modified during installation that it's pretty much impossible to remove. My local alarm company said the same. What do you think a system that cuts and splices a bunch of wires in your electrical system does to reliability?

Most car alarms on Japanese cars are aftermarket boxes installed by dealers. Some are actually OEM parts, but they tend to be extremely simple (and unlikely to prevent anything). It's a whole bunch of extra electronics known to deplete your battery and cause maintenance issues when the car is older (I tend to keep my cars 10 to 15 years).

Sorry to be so negative...it's a pet peeve. I'm sure there are some $3000 alarm systems that can actually aid in theft prevention. I just don't believe any of the $600 ones do anything but line dealers pockets and wake me up at night.

 

So I'm sitting in an important meeting and when I sit down there is a car alarm that goes off outside in the parking lot. Guess whose it was? Level of embarrassment = 10.