Last year my wife and I were faced with having to replace a head light in my BMW 325i. When I was quoted $1,000 at the BMW dealer I told them that I wanted to think about it. I talked to my wife and thought that instead of $1,000 to fix the head light, what about trading or selling my car for a Toyota Prius. Initially my wife was a little skeptical of getting the odd looking car, but she suggested that I go test drive one.
It Is So Quiet - Is The Car On?
So the next thing I knew I was sitting in the front seat of a Toyota Prius with a buddy of mine in the passenger seat test driving. The car was extremely quiet. In fact is was so quiet I had to turn to the sales guy in the back seat to ask him if I had forgotten anything when I turned the car on. The guy laughed and said "No, the car is on. All you have to do is take your foot off the break and push on the gas pedal like any other car."
Immediately upon pushing the gas pedal the car moved forward, but I still couldn't hear the engine. So I asked about that, and the sales guy chuckled one more time and said, "What you are hearing is the electric motor, soon you'll hear the engine kick in." And it was about that time that the engine did kick in. We could hear it, but it was still really quiet.
Plenty of Power
As I drove around on my test drive, I noticed that the car had a fair amount of power in spite of its smokin' 113 horsepower engine. Getting on the freeway was no problems and I could pass cars easily. In fact the car ran quiet and fast on the freeway. At one point, my buddy in the passenger seat pointed at the LED Speedo read out and I was going 85 mph in a 65 zone. Oops.
Electric Brake In Addition To Regular Brakes
Another cool feature that I learned about that day was the electric brake. Yes, I said electric brake. Part of the Toyota Hybrid engine design is that they use an electric brake that recharges the batteries in the car. These are the same batteries that moved the car when I just started out on my test drive. I have heard that the other reason they put the electric brake in the car is because the hybrids are so heavy with the batteries and other equipment that the electric brake if used properly can greatly save the wear and tear on the car's regular brakes.
Backup Camera - No More Straining To Turn My Head
The last feature that I discovered on my test drive was the back up camera. The sales guy had me pull into a parking lot and park the car. Then when he gave the word, he told me to back out, but only looking at the screen on the dashboard. It was cool as I could see a very wide angle behind the car and was able to back out safely with just using the screen.
Well, after having me back out his way, he suggested that you cannot only just use the camera, but the camera can show right behind your car which is difficult to see in any car. He also suggested that sometimes when the sun is shining right in the camera like in early morning or later afternoon that the camera might not show as good of a picture. He also said that it was great for seeing at night. It did like having the camera, but I can see myself turning my head too, at least until I get used to using the camera to back up.
A Great Test Drive Sold Me The Prius
And that was it. I had my test drive. I liked the car a lot and decided that the BMW was history. I actually found a cash buyer for my BMW. Once I had cash in hand, my wife and I went to the Toyota dealer and picked out our Prius. At that point there was a little bit of a wait as the car was still in transit from the loading dock in California. But after 3 weeks of patiently waiting our sales manager dropped off the car to my wife and I while we were out to dinner with some friends. Talk about great customer service. We have now had the car for over a year and we love it. But that is for the next article: I Drive a Toyota Prius.
