What do you think of your Prius?

Pogyqueen asks:

Hey, do you be liking your Prius? Cuz I am thinking about shopping for one, and I see they have all kinds of models and blabbady blah. Do you have complaints or things you wish they had done differently, that I should watch out for in different models?

I haven’t looked at the different sub-models of Prius. I only wanted a hatchback.

No car is perfect. I do like the Prius, overall. I have the ’07 model. It gets great gas mileage. The airfoil thingy on the back is stupid, if they’re still doing that. The visibility out the rear window is not the greatest because the window’s kind of small and has a big bar through the middle where the airfoil thingy is. Rebecca says it’s uncomfortable for her to sit in. I say it’s not ideal in that respect but it’s no worse for me than any other car I tried. It’s stupid the way they design the seats with a curve in them and then the headrest pushes your head forward, so you’re forced into an uncomfortable posture, but they all seem to do that nowadays.

The Prius has a reasonably quiet ride; however, practically any hatchback will be louder than a car with a trunk. It’s nice that you can make the whole back big open space for hauling things, though it’s occasionally been inconvenient that the hatch opening isn’t 4 ft wide because a lot of things from the DIY come in that width. You can’t put a trailer hitch on it.* When we  were looking for Rebecca’s car (she chose a Corolla) I got a decibel meter app for my phone so we could tell which was quietest. It’s hard to compare car models because you forget which aspects you noticed were in which car. Keep a chart. One thing I really like about the Prius is the keyless entry and ignition, which isn’t specific to Prius. Rebecca doesn’t like it because it’s spoiled her for her own car where she, annoyingly, has to actually take out her key to open the door. The screen display isn’t a huge benefit, but it’s kind of fun and R likes it and wishes she had one. It’s entertaining at first to watch the battery charge up and so on, but the fascination fades. The backup camera is occasionally useful, though not as much as I’d thought it would be. The sound system is okay. I like that it has an AUX plug though I guess they pretty much all have that now. The AC works well. I wish there were a USB port on the dash for charging things. I think the running lights should come on automatically; they don’t. I don’t like how, when I want to go somewhere, I have to actually direct the car there manually instead of just telling it where to go; it makes it hard to read. The built-in bluetooth in R’s car is very handy and I wish I had one too. The glove box in the Prius is well designed and roomy. I like the secret drawer. If you ask the car dealer to show you the secret drawer and they can’t, it’s because it’s that secret. When I discovered mine, it still had stuff in it from the previous owner because the dealer apparently didn’t realize it was there and needed to be cleaned out. The secret drawer isn’t in the glove box; I just realized I may have given that impression. It’s elsewhere. I won’t tell you exactly where because then it wouldn’t be secret. I wouldn’t get the light gray again, silver or whatever they call it, because it’s a little boring, but it’s what they had on the lot, used.


* Technically, you can add a trailer hitch, but I’ve found that when you ask someone to, he screws up his face and sucks breath in through his teeth and says he doesn’t know if he’d do that, if it was his car. I may be overgeneralizing. But technically, it’s not recommended, anyway.

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2 comments

    • Anne Qwerty on 11 June 2013 at 9:46 pm

    What was in your secret drawer — or is that a secret? My parents (Dr. and Mrs. Qwerty) have a Prius. They have never mentioned a secret drawer. Maybe they are keeping it a secret, or maybe they don’t know it exists.

    • on 12 June 2013 at 5:08 am

    IIRC, it was the wrapper from a Pearson’s Salted Nut Roll, a rubber band, and the cap of a Bic ballpoint.

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