Excellent drive train, but fragile body
The Prius has an excellent drive train. There is ample power for ordinary driving. The hybrid system is super smooth. Some other hybrids jerk when slowing down as the braking switches the electromechanical system to ordinary friction brakes. Note the Prius; it is perfectly small all the way down to a full stop.
The Prius is supposed to get about 50 MPG. But this only in the very best case. The original tires have thin tread, and don't last as long as we expect these days. As soon as you put on some Michelin tires, the MPG goes down. Drive 75 MPH, and it goes down. Turn on the AC or even the headlights, and it goes down. In practice I get somewhere down in the 40s.
The visibility is not as good as you might wish. The metal at the edges of the windshield is quick thick, and blocks your vision. The horizontal bar across the middle of the back, sometimes blocks vision.
The body is quite fragile, and repairs are very expensive. I once drive into a driveway where some roots of a nearby tree had made a 1 inch discontinuity in the surface. Something on the front of the car under the radiator caught on that 1 inch discontinuity. The repair bill was around $3000.
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Verified Owner
