What are your thoughts on the Gen. 4 Prius?

I find this really funny, because I was determined not to get a Gen 4 Prius. It took just the right color combination to get me past the things I really didn't like about the looks. Now that I have dealt with the white bathroom fixtures, I enjoy the interior of the car and several other things about it I am able to appreciate:

• The entire drive train is much more refined. Accelerator response is perfect, braking is much smoother and more predictable. The transition from EV to hybrid to regen is so imperceptible.
  
• The quietness is of the interior is almost shocking!
  
• The steering feels very agile and nicely weighted and engages perfectly at just the right rate.
  
• The suspension feels like that of a car costing a lot more. It has isolation from road imperfections, but is not soft and squishy. All types of body movements are really nicely damped too.
• Almost no body roll! My 2010 in comparison feels like a fat hippo rolling over on its belly.

Strange that Toyota put so much thought and development into the technical driving aspects of the car, but the design part of the project was not as unified. It seems like they had 3 teams of designers working on the car who did not agree with each other or communicate much.

 

Yes!

 

you shocked the world!

 

I've been wondering about that myself. It does seem a lot of the design choices were aimed more at getting the car a new look from non-fans than reinforcing the virtues that have long appealed to current owners. We pulled the trigger on one for ourselves, but I'll admit it was a closer call than I would have expected; I contemplated leasing a Gen1 v while waiting to see its Gen2, Ioniq, Niro, etc. but the missus is quite the loyalist. We are VERY glad we waited for the Gen4 rather than settling for the Gen3 a couple years ago, so there's that.

 

Well if it is real 'toe tappin' music.'

Bob Wilson

 

Some people were talking about auto radio sound adjustment. I noticed this weekend when driving with my husband that we were on the freeway and the radio was at volume 2 and it was fine (he likes the radio softer than I like it). I would imagine though that there had to be some auto adjustment based on speed in order for the radio to be down so low and still enjoyable on the freeway.

 

they probably figured, with most hybrid enthusiasts captured, they had to try something radical to get others on board, even at the expense of losing some existing customers. it's a strategy they may have been inevitable, no idea if it will work, or in non hybrid owners will now buy a prius because it's 'sporty' with a radical design.

 

Don't most long running models go thru the change. I was very upset at times on what they've done with the ford mustang.

BTY - On antiques roadshow, they had an antique mustang pedal car that was evaluated at $4,000.00 That what I paid for the real one (brand new) many, many years ago...

 

Except for the forward forking of the light assemblies, I really like the front end styling. It is growing on me. I love the overall profile, and the floating rear roofiline is growing on me in spite of its blacked out plastic fakery. I don't think I will ever get used to the pinch beneath the rear spoiler in the rear view, however, it is very awkward looking.

 

The 2016 Prius designers leaned heavily on the current trends. There's not much good about this, leads to a creative monoculture, and a lot of strange, impractical excess.

Just to pick one facet of this: the blacked-out zone at low-to-central zone of the rear fairing, serves no purpose, looks jarring, but everybody's doing it.

 

perhaps it looks normal to everyone else then.

 

You got me there.

 

What Mendel Leisk is talking about is the rear valance, the black part at the bottom of the rear bumper, for what it's worth.

 

Yes, this:



(I am confusing things by calling the rear bumper a "fairing", sorry.)

 

I would think if this was true the Gen 4 Prius would look like a Hyundai or Kia. I like my Prius precisely because it doesn't look like every other car on the road. Last night while I was sitting in a restaurant people were walking around my Prius taking pictures of it. I don't think that kind of thing would happen if they couldn't stand the look it.

 

hyundai is the worst copycat automaker on the planet. they have never had an original thought.

 

I bought my first ever new car as a Hyundai i20 two and a half years ago - prior to that, I'd owned lots of 15 year old bangers. I enjoyed owning almost all of the old unreliable cars more than that Hyundai - it was no improvement on Nissan diesels 25 years it's senior. I could have forgiven all the bland looks and uninspiring drive if it came anywhere close to the quoted economy (94 mpg highway - a lifetime of semi hypermiling left me with 64 mpg in 40,000 miles). The plan was always to keep the car 10 years, to make it a good economic choice. Ownership of it made me so cross and miserable, I gladly got rid of it at a loss to take ownership of my lovely Prius - which I am now wishing it was already time to go to work, so I can drive her! Just 15 more minutes....

 

I thought that was the most words I've seen used to describe "floating roof" until it was explained you were talking about the rear bumper. The Touring just adds to this excess with even more random gingerbread back there.

As for floating roofs, I first noticed this affectation on the last Nissan Murano update; I didn't think it looked bad exactly (at least not on that crossover), just gratuitous. As it's showing up in more places, though, it's starting to look like opera windows and whitewall tires - just a dumb fad that's going to be hard to explain later. I hope it stops soon. As noted in earlier discussions, in the Gen4 Prius it's just another random design fillip tossed into the blender that poured out that noisome rear quarter, and on lighter colors especially (including the ever-sensible silver) it makes things worse than they would otherwise be. I expect a mid-cycle refresh for the Gen4 more significant than anything we saw on the previous gens.

 

that is very eloquent ben, are you a writer?