Well the lease came up on the old car. I had decided a long time ago to replace it with a LPG car such as a Ford, but on the lease car list was a new car, the Toyota Prius. I headed off to the dealer for a test drive, joined a user group on Yahoo, and read the Wikipedia entry all as part of the research for the car. I am very happy with it. At the moment I am supposedly getting 4.5 l/100 km. Less than half the consumption of the Xtrail (8 to 13 l/100km).
The findings so far:
- The car is very very quiet. Keat was noting that the road noise (from the uneven Parramatta Road) is suddenly the main noise in the car.
- The acceleration is good. It sill behaves a bit like a automatic when accelerating as the engine has to kick in.
- The petrol engine kicking in and out is barely noticeable, except when the engine stops when the car is already stationary.
- Getting used to all the stalk controls is a problem and the placement of the cruise control leavers is very poor. There are other things on the steering wheel (where the cruise controls should be) that are weird, like the rear demister.
- I had to get out the manual to find the 12 volt outlet and there is only one.
