Soon-to-be New Owner Questions...

[NeutronIC]

Hi!

I've had a browse through the last years worth of Prius posts on here and there's a goldmine of information here, some snippets of which I shall be printing out and keeping in a file in the car (like how to start it when the Battery is dead!).

Before I get in to the rest of the post - I presume it'll be useful to clarify that it's a T-Spirit 57 Reg.

I have a couple of other questions that have been on my mind and just wondered if someone could help or clarify things?

1. Sat Nav - Can you put in your own points of interest? E.g. i currently use Tomtom and travel most weekends including hotel stays at Premier Inn hotels - using their POI download I have a complete database of Premier Inn's available for the picking and it has been extremely handy as they're obviously much more reliable than a post-code. OR can someone who has one see if the PI's are in there at all?

2. Sat Nav - Can you add favouites? Over the course of a particular weekend I go back and forth between the hotel and an exhibition venue a couple of times (e.g. two or three day shows) - so not having to program it in each time is a big saving.

3. Audio - I get the impression from reading here that the Ipod integration is actually a total waste of money, looks to be about £150 quid? And most comments I see are saying it doesn't work very well at all in a T-Spirit. Is that a fair summary or old data?

4. Audio - Does the standard T-Spirit have a normal audio input jack for plugging an external player in to? My phone has most of my music on it (8gb memory) so it would be great to just set a playlist going from that through the car Speakers. What form does it take, is it a bespoke cable or is it a 3.5mm socket?

I think that's about it... looking forward to my new (used) car - just got to find out on Monday about the settlement figure for the current one (Nissan Primera) and then the finance can be put through and I can go pick it up :)

Thanks in advance

Matt.

[Delilah 62]

Questions 3 and 4 -

The iPod intergration kit is a waste of money on a Prius with the SatNav screen. You can only play from playlists and you can't see the names of songs or artists. All playlists appear as numbers 1 - 6, so you don't know which one you're accessing anyway.

There is a 3.5mm jack in the centre armrest which you can plug your MP3 player in to. You'll need a male-male lead and I would recommend getting a nice long one so you ban either fit the cable so it is neatly hidden or so you can pass it to the passengers to select the music. I'm trying to build enough enthusiam to make something to mount my iPod on the dash below the radio for single touch operation.

Hope that helps

[timberwolf]

1. Sat Nav - Can you put in your own points of interest? E.g. i currently use Tomtom and travel most weekends including hotel stays at Premier Inn hotels - using their POI download I have a complete database of Premier Inn's available for the picking and it has been extremely handy as they're obviously much more reliable than a post-code. OR can someone who has one see if the PI's are in there at all?

2. Sat Nav - Can you add favouites? Over the course of a particular weekend I go back and forth between the hotel and an exhibition venue a couple of times (e.g. two or three day shows) - so not having to program it in each time is a big saving.

1. Nope, you can not add any custom POI.

2. I forget how many memory slots can be stored, I've only noticed 5 slots (but I'm not sure if that is the total).

[benw123]

1. Sat Nav - Can you put in your own points of interest? E.g. i currently use Tomtom and travel most weekends including hotel stays at Premier Inn hotels - using their POI download I have a complete database of Premier Inn's available for the picking and it has been extremely handy as they're obviously much more reliable than a post-code. OR can someone who has one see if the PI's are in there at all?

No you can't, although you can manually enter map points and assign different icons to them. So while it would probably take you all day to add the Premier Inn sites, you can get a half-way house solution.

2. Sat Nav - Can you add favouites? Over the course of a particular weekend I go back and forth between the hotel and an exhibition venue a couple of times (e.g. two or three day shows) - so not having to program it in each time is a big saving.

As previously answered, there are six which appear in the under the Destination (DEST) button, with the left-most one being the "Home" option. You can select these while on the move - selecting other destinations requires the car to be stationary.

3. Audio - I get the impression from reading here that the Ipod integration is actually a total waste of money, looks to be about £150 quid? And most comments I see are saying it doesn't work very well at all in a T-Spirit. Is that a fair summary or old data?

4. Audio - Does the standard T-Spirit have a normal audio input jack for plugging an external player in to? My phone has most of my music on it (8gb memory) so it would be great to just set a playlist going from that through the car speakers. What form does it take, is it a bespoke cable or is it a 3.5mm socket?

I use the audio jack for my iPod Shuffle and it works well. The jack is hidden in the centre armrest so the iPod lives in there most of time, and I just pull it out leaving a couple of inches of cable hanging out of the armrest, before shutting it which clamps the cable in the place. Then, without taking my eyes of the road, I can reach down next to me and advance or repeat the tracks.

Good luck with the car - create another thread with pictures and your thoughts!