Honest Opinion: Prius review, from a gearhead

Gah, I know; I'm now one of those people. Bearded, hemp wearin' (& smokin'), soy mocha frappuccino drinking, green party voting, tree huggin, carbon footprint asshole.
Great....

Only, I'm not.

This is a review of the 2007 Toyota Prius hybrid as a used car, from the perspective of a guy that owns a 15 mpg Firebird with no emissions equipment. It'll be fun. :)

The Story
Back in June, my Alero was making a grinding noise on the way to class. No big deal, I thought, I'll just have to pay to have the rotors replaced. Again. I thought my previous rotor scrubbing trick had worked (see blog post from early June), but oh well, I'll just pay out the cash for new rotors. So we watched our films and aI went to leave. As I get to the car, What? Why is the lug nut lose? Well, it turns out the lug (wheel stud) had come with the nut, and was just sitting in the wheel. Odd....
So I drive home, taking the service road, and going through Forrest Park in order to keep the speeds down. But the grinding gets worse. Unfortunately by this time it is pouring rain, and the streets are starting to flood. By the time I got to north Midwest City, I had to pull over. First for the grinding noise sounds like the wheel is going to fall off, and second, the street is covered with moving water. I wait and hour or two, Kat comes to get get me, and we see that two more lugs have broken off, leaving 2 bolts holding the wheel on. I have about 3 miles left to go..... We towed it. Long story short, there's a 2000 Olds Alero in Pull-A-Part if you need anything. Anything but wheel studs.
So, i missed work and class the next day while Kat & I did a frantic internet search for cars. Her dad had recently bought a 2010 Prius, and it was working out great for them. I always thought they were too expensive for the size (and ugly), so I hadn't been interested before. After checking things out though, it seemed to be the perfect car for us; 4 doors, working a/c, comfy seats, great gas mileage. After seeing a $2000 discount, just for being outsiode the OKC area, we drove to Arlington, TX to pick up an '07 Prius the next day. Yes, we're nuts.

The Review
As for the car, we are happy with it. As far as looks, I think it has gone from way-ugly, to just a plain looking economy car. Sure, it's a little funky looking, but that is due to aerodynamics, and chosing function over form makes sense here.
Is it dog slow? Yes. It has a 1.5 liter four cylinder with a whopping 76 horsepower. That is half as much as the 1953 Corvette, itself a slow car. However, with it being such a light car, the power is actually adequate. It is slower than the Alero, so I would put its speed about the level of a Honda Fit, Nissan Versa, and other micro cars. Is it dangerously slow? Nope. I've yet to find an on-ramp that I couldn't get up to the speed limit before merging.
Hadling is better than the Alero, about comparable to a 4th generation Camaro, but with better steering response. The steering is electrically controlled, so it is fast and light, yet lacking in feeling. It takes some getting used to. The suspension will flop through a corner, but it won't lay on its side like the Alero did.
Braking is also different. It has regenerative braking that uses brake heat to transfer electricity to the battery. Seriously. The initial "bite" is quick when you step on the pedal. Just a centimeter or two and the nose dives and the car comes to a stop rather quickly. But, if you have to make a real emergency stop, the small rotors and hard pads show themselves to be merely acceptable. When they wear out, I'd be getting some better replacement parts.
The interior is nice, but full of plastic. I don't care, but some would like a more "higher-end" design. I think it is fine, full of storage and purpose. The seats are way comfy, and hip/shoulder room is generous. Surprising for a Japanese car sold in an obese country. Headroom is good, but I wouldn't want to be any taller than 6'3" as a driver. About 6' or so is all you can be to sit in the rear seats comfortably. The sound system is good, but nothing special.
Ergonomics are....... odd. The CD player/radio took several minutes to fumble through to figure it out. The shifter is located on the dash, and the parking brake is the old-school foot activated type off to the left of the footwell. When parking, everything is normal until it's time to turn off the car. Then, even though I've been driving it for 6 weeks, I have to consciously look at the shifter, realize there is no "P" on it, push the "P" button above the shifter, step on the foot brake, push the power button to turn off the engine, then pull the square plastic brick of a key out of the dash. I still don't have it down entirely.
It is generally quiet (amazingly quiet when driving with the engine off), but some people do complain about road noise. Since I do a 30 mile one way commute each day, I'm going to look into a suggestion offered online: Mr Gasket G-Muff. It is a spray on sound deaden-er (I didn't know that was how you spelled that...). It is available online for $10.

Overall, we are very happy with it. Four doors, working a/c, super comfy, and it's reliable. The mpg is just a bonus. So far, my average with the car is 46.7 mpg. That is lower than the all highway trip from TX where it did 51 mpg, but still very nice. Oh, and I figured out a way to drive to work that takes the back roads. The speed limit is 40 to 45 the entire way. At that speed the car puts up 65 to 70 mpg. :)