Gen 3 Delivery

November 16, 2009

Hi everyone, been a lurker on the site for a long time but not posted. Had a Prius Gen 2 TSprit for a couple of years and loved it (cept for the dreaded brake noise issue) and now have a Gen 3 TSpirit on order. Thing is that the delivery date keeps shifting. Ordered the car (with leather) back in early September. Was told at the time to expect delivery at end of September but this quickly went to End of November and then to Jauary. At this point I told the dealer to cancel and hey presto! delivery now back on track for December 2nd. Does anyone know if this delivery time is about the norm or is the dealer playing silly b***rs?

:) Great site by the way - its good not to have to visit our American cousins all the time to get prius updates.

November 16, 2009

Are you after any other options? Leather is a port fitted option so wont affect your car as Toyota can convert any grey interior car to leather quite easily. But other options like the LED technology pack or the Sunroof are factoty fit options and will take far longer.

If leather is your only option then my advice is to ring around a few other local dealers and see what they say. Or even try a different region. You might be surprised.

Toyota works on a quota basis per dealer. If you dealer's quota is sold then you have to wait and that's the end of it. If they've moved you forward my guess is that they've moved someone else back.

November 16, 2009

Thanks for quick response wooski. Yup - leather is only option I asked for although I'm wondering if I should have gone for the LED tech pack - the standard lights on the Gen 2 Prius were pretty dismal and I uprated the bulbs with Phillips X-treme power bulbs which were great, although a real pain to fit. Has anyone got any comments on the standard Gen 3 lighting?

Back to delivery times I'll take your advice and do some ringing round - wont hurt to have some extra info to have a go at the dealer with if they try to move delivery dates again.

November 16, 2009

Thanks for quick response wooski. Yup - leather is only option I asked for although I'm wondering if I should have gone for the LED tech pack - the standard lights on the Gen 2 Prius were pretty dismal and I uprated the bulbs with Phillips X-treme power bulbs which were great, although a real pain to fit. Has anyone got any comments on the standard Gen 3 lighting?
Back to delivery times I'll take your advice and do some ringing round - wont hurt to have some extra info to have a go at the dealer with if they try to move delivery dates again.

The lights on my Gen 2 are excellent, with a great range and beam pattern, they are very bright on both dip and full beam. I don't know what make of bulbs they are as I have never even had to replace one (I've had the Prius 16 months). My previous car, a BMW 5 series, had dismal lights on dip, so I replaced them with a pair of Philips X-treme power. They were certainly much brighter, but one failed after only a couple of months, so I contacted the on-line company I purchased them from and asked if there were any reliability problems with these bulbs. I was assured there weren't, and they sent me a replacement bulb. The other bulb then failed about three weeks later. So I phoned again and asked if there were any reliability issues, again I was told there weren't, but, after stating that I must therefore be exceptionally unlucky to have had two fail within 3 months, I then got a "Well they're much brighter than a standard bulb so obviously they won't last as long!" attitude, and they very begrudgingly posted another one to me. They were £32 a pair, so if I'd had to keep paying for them they would cost £128 a year at that rate! I bought the Prius before I had another one fail, and unless they have improved dramatically, I wouldn't bother buying X-treme power bulbs again.

I might be tempted by the Philips 'Ecovision' bulb, however, which claims to save 20% power consumption, be 10% brighter and last twice as long as a standard H4.

November 16, 2009

Fuel Miser - Thats an interesting point bout the Phillips - I had one of the Philips Xtreme power bulbs fail on the Gen 2 Prius after bout 15 months. Glad you are happy with your lights. My Gen 2 was an 07 and my previous car to that was a focus ST with Bi Xeons so I guess I didn't give the Prius enough time to acclimatize back to normal halogens. Before you ask, I know the ST was a very different beast from the Prius - lets just say I realised I wasn't mature enough for it and I wanted to hang on to my licence. - I never regretted the change to the Prius though - it was superior in so many ways, not to mention the improved mpg from 22 -23 in the ST to 55 average in the Prius.