zen.org Communal Weblog

I’ve had my Toyota Prius for almost a month now, I’m about ready for my 1000 mile checkup. According to the on board monitor I’ve been getting over 50MPH, and have been very happy with it. Don’t let the following discourage you from getting one, but here is a list of my peeves:

• Climate Control. It seems the temperature sensor is only in the front seat. I’m fine driving the car, in the back Daphne and Zoë sweat, so we open the windows (see below). Turning up the AC manually leaves me chilled, and ladies still a little warm.
• The TV. Everything is wired into that thing. The radio, the AC. I guess they are trying to get you to only buy stuff from Toyota or something. I do not want a half foot screen in my front seat, apart from the MPH graph everything it does would be better if done the old way, a little LED telling me which motor is running and when the battery is recharging would be so much better then the useless eye candy they have to do it. Plus the screen is already all smudged up because it’s a touch screen. A small note to all car makers, please start putting auxilary inputs in your standard radios, I’m stuck with CD and radio input until the radio dies. I guess I’m not getting a ogg player for a long time. MP3 player makers, start griping to car makers about it!
• Driving with windows open. I don’t think they did any test driving with windows open. When only the drivers seat is open air pressure starts pressing on the ears, and when a back window is open too sometimes a resonance tone starts pounding the ears. The SAAB sometimes had this resonance problem when only the driver window was open, but opening a second window fixed it. I haven’t figured out a sure fire way to fix it on the Prius.