Prius C Review
A friend asked if Megan and I liked the Prius C we bought a few months ago. It’s a 2012 Prius C Model 2. Here’s the review I gave her.
“Bill” at Toyota of Berkeley sold it to us. He was “pretty good”. Of course it’s his job to say that every car we test drove was the best. The folks at Oakland Honda near Macarthur BART were insane (in a bad way). Some lady in the Honda Fremont Auto Mall was also awful. The used car consignment place… Buggy Bank in Berkeley was good but they’ve got a limited selection, and all used.
The Prius C is a great city car, pretty good highway car, a little noisy on the highway, 50+mpg highway (my record so far is 86mpg in a 10 mile stretch), 50+mpg city. It feels zippy (the honda fit 2009-2014 is sluggish get and gets mediocre MPG but the 2015 is zippy and gets better MPG).
The Mazda 3 just about crosses over into “sportscar” territory while being similar.
I squeezed 3 full size guys with 2 folded bikes in the car with no problem (that kind of amazed me)
The honda fit has fantastic views of the road, it’s like driving in a glass car. The Prius C has “very good” views of the road. I found the regular prius to have dangerous blind spots where the “A” pillar is. But your experience will probably be different because you are a much different height.
It’s little bit more expensive than the Fit but since Toyotas (and Hondas) keep their value so well, it wasn’t a stretch. We liked the interior design of the Prius a little more than the Fit. Our 2012 Prius C with 30k miles was about $18k, $19k after taxes etc..
There’s a couple models, the 1, 2, 3, and 4 with different options. I recall thinking “don’t get a 1”, I think it is lacking cruise control. Our “2” is good. I think the “3” has keyless ignition which would have been sweet but it’s like a $2,000 jump in price. And I wouldn’t bother with the navigation package since your phone is probably better than it (though I haven’t tested the prius navigation)