We just got our 6th Prius -- Wife facing a learning curve.

Same problem with the Prime. Mine has two threaded holes covered with plastic caps. They are just behind the seat backs, one on each side. I used one of them to bolt down a D-ring to secure a donut spare with a strap. I never found a D-ring the right size so I made one from a D-ring that used a two-hole flat strap to hold it down. I cut two of those flat straps and welded them face to face with the D-ring secured between them. Not the prettiest, but who's looking?

(edited to fix a couple really dumb typos)

 

It's super early since we've only put about 50 miles or so on it, but I took a look at her average mpg last night since she got it. For some dumb reason I forgot to record the original owner's lifetime mpg before resetting the total mpg. <face-palm!!> This weekend, I'll check the log in the MID to see what I can discover. Anyway, she reset trip A when she got gas and left trip B which has about 2,600 miles on it. Trip B shows 46.6 mpg. Main (since we bought it) is 57.0. Since getting gas, Trip A is about 56 mpg, iirc so that doesn't reflect the 30 mile drive home from Tampa Hybrids, which is what makes the total higher than the tank. Her trips are usually less than 10 miles, so I think it's doing well and so is she for adjusting to such a new experience.

If she was getting close to 50 mpg on her old Gen 2, I can't wait to see how she does with this!!

 

I mentioned that capability to her yesterday and she was surprised to find it out. The I was able to talk her through doing it when we went out to change her settings to enable the split view of the speedometer with the instantaneous mpg meter.

That's funny, right there! I need to look for a small storm trooper sticker for the lower rear glass or something. Edit to add that I see lots of them on Amazon.

 

Sorry, but I won't get the chance. I bought one for her Gen 2 a while back that was supposedly the Heatshield brand and supposedly custom made for the Gen 2. It was about six inches too tall for her windshield. Not even close. Looked like a perfect fit for a Gen 3 but that was after I traded it for the Prime. I said as much to the vendor, but the vendor insisted it was perfect for the G2 despite the fact that it extended beyond the folded up visors and would not go under the mirror.

Sooooo .... My wife is a wiz with a sewing machine. She simply made it fit. And it turns out to be a near perfect fit for her new car as well. As I said, she's very frugal. She does NOT want me to buy her another one. I'll try to remember to take a picture this weekend.

 

PS. Todd just told me he already sold the old 2007. A long-time customer who wanted something inexpensive but reliable bought it. That's pretty cool. Now I just hope something doesn't happen!!

 

Wife is still loving her "new" Prius. She thanked me for it again yesterday.

As to gas mileage, I haven't checked how it's going lately but here's a little comparison against my Prime.

• Driving home Sunday night from friends 20 miles away in the Prius.
  • New Yokohama Avid tires (forgot the specific model)
  • 8 mph tail wind most of the way.
  • Mostly 45 mph speed limits with slower near the start and end.

• Driving home last night from another friend's house a few doors away from Sunday in the Prime in HV mode all the way.
  • Yokohama Avid Ascend GT tires with about 20,000 miles on them.
  • 3 mph crossing tail wind most of the way.
  • Same speeds as Sunday.

Prime wins, but the Prius did very well. New tires on the Prius might have had some effect, but being different models, I'm not sure which tires roll easier. The wind gave the Prius a little more help than the Prime.

The two cars behaved very differently with the Prius only stopping the ICE at 50 mph when I eased off the accelerator pedal. The Prime at 50 mph would use the ICE to bring the battery up to its starting SOC and then run in EV till it drained off about 3-4% of the charge. Then charge it back up. It went about one or two miles in each mode. Average mpg would go up when the ICE was off and down when it was on, but each time it reached a higher point when the ICE kicked in. Looked a little like a stock market chart lately. The Prius started out with very low mpg (as did the Prime, of course) but it just gradually climbed all the way home. Prime started out low, but was up to over 60 mpg within about 3-4 miles.