Toyota Prius (Hybrid)

I have owned a Toyota Prius (Hybrid) for a couple of years now. I purchased it new. After this length of time, I feel qualified to report back on this car.
I first drove this car nearly two years ago. I took over what was left over of a 6 month lease on a Prius T3. I was offered it and took it up because paying the congestion charge to drive into central London was driving me potty. What with saving the charge and the saving on petrol the car pretty much paid for itself. No Brainer!
The T3 itself is no great car. I noticed quite a few things I did not like about the car. It has a 1.5 litre engine which is sufficient for driving around town. Get it out on the motorway and it was a dog to drive. No pickup, no responsiveness whatsoever. The handling was atrocious. Sometimes going around corners I would be praying that the car would still be on the correct side of the road when I came out on the other side. Thankfully, nothing untoward happened. To be fair this is the lowest powered engine I have driven on a long term basis since passing my driving test. Maybe I have high expectations. I used to have a BMW316i (1.6 litre) which would wipe the floor with the Prius. I appreciate these are different beasts but still........
The stereo system (basic) was absolutely rubbish. I spend anywhere between two and four hours a day in the car almost seven days a week. I need to be able to listen to music at a decent standard. This system was not up to a decent standard.
On the plus side it was saving me petrol and therefore money. When driving the Audi (2.7 litre turbo) I was filling up a 66 litre tank every four days. The Prius, I was filling up a 45 litre tank every fortnight. However, I am not sure what kind of mileage other 1.5 litre engine cars give nowadays. I suspect they won’t be far short of a Prius.
Anyway three months later I took on a brand new Prius Tspirit. This car was fully loaded. I took it thinking that it had all the toys – better stereo system, satnav, Bluetooth hands free kit, intelligent park assist and a rear parking camera. I fooled myself into thinking these toys would make up for the other weaknesses of the car. At this point I was still being seduced by the cash savings.
The Tspirit was exactly the same car as the T3 in terms of driveability and technology. In another word – rubbish. The better stereo system was better than the previous one, but far worse than anything I have had in any other car at different price points. The Tspirit is not a cheap car. It retails in excess of £20,000. This puts it straight into BMW & Audi territory. The Tspirit is not close to these competitors in terms of comfort and extras. The stereo system is so bad that I have stopped listening to music in the car. I listen to talk radio and podcasts because music sounds bad in the car. That is a shame. The Bluetooth hands free kit is cumbersome to set up and is about 3 years behind in terms of usability. Voice dialling – forget it....you need to tag every single contact individually. If you have 10 contacts that is fine. With 500 contacts – no chance. The satnav wants to be my granny. It won’t let me change any route directions, options etc. unless i am at a complete standstill. That is not always possible. From a safety perspective I understand that, however, I have a passenger who can make the changes while we are moving. Then what!!! The park assist is a cute toy but it is a toy. If you try to use it on the streets of any major city, by the time you have set up the car and used it, you will have been killed by the other angry drivers around you. I do like the rear camera. This is really useful when parking and reversing into spaces. The buttons for opening and shutting windows and locking the car from the inside do not have lights or luminous paint. In the dark one is groping and hitting buttons in the hope that one will get lucky.
So you can see I am not overly enamoured with this car. There are only two things I like about the car, Fuel consumption and the rear camera. I can see this car appealing to someone who does a lot of driving in the city, going to the shops etc. Paying near enough to £20,000 just does not warrant the fuel savings. One could buy a cheaper car and god knows there are loads of those about these days, with smaller or similar sized engines and pay a little more for fuel and still have change left over from £20,000. I certainly will not be buying another one. If I could break the lease now, I would. Unfortunately, I have to hold onto this car for another year and a bit.
Funnily enough, I had a dealer calling me to ask if I wanted to test drive the new model and maybe buy it. I told the lady, it was the worst car I had the misfortune to drive and own and I would never buy another one. Stunned silence!