This has gone amazingly quickly and smoothly, until the first payment and/or how much our insurance will get jacked!
Even so, I’m pretty excited…oddly. Last night, Somara and I finished work in time to make it up to Round Rock Toyota well before closing time dealerships in Texas close by 8 PM and they’re never open on Sundays). I wanted to press about the upcoming Corolla Hatchback hybrid, but the cool sales guy (from the Quad Cities too) said they’re a ways off. I know I was set against a new Prius C because they’re discontinued which means I’d have to take what remained in Toyota’s dwindling inventory, namely the color. My bitchin’ orange doesn’t exist anymore leaving me blue, red or black.
We didn’t leave empty-handed, sort of. After we deposit the check I’m receiving from GEICO based upon Vixen’s current worth, I use this in turn as the down payment plus, thanks to the advice of a co-worker (Frances is a genius), the dealership willingly transferred the remaining two years on Vixen’s maintenance plan toward the new eight-year plan I won this car.
Oh, what am I picking up? A new, 2019 Prius (sedan) but it’s the bottom-end model for features and capabilities which Toyota has bumped up!
- Built-in “TV Screen” utilizing a backing up camera when in reverse.
- Blind-spot detectors in the side mirrors. LED goes off when someone is in them.
- It can parallel park itself. Something I could never do anyway.
- No more key-based ignition, it’s a button yet the keys need to be close.
- An instrument cluster for people with serious OCD.
- Mileage is even better because this one uses Lithium-based batteries instead of the Nickel-based Vixen had.
What color is it? Since Austin is filled with silver, gray, white and black cars with smatterings of blue, I went with red. Yes, yes, I know all the myths regarding red cars. Firstly, I do the speed limit about 90% of the time, cops will leave me alone. Secondly, I have little idea how anyone can steal this car if they don’t have the keys, there isn’t anything in the steering column to jimmy. Lastly, no, I didn’t choose red as some middle-age move of desperation. It’s what the dealership had for my budget and I wanted a color that was easy to find in a parking lot until I customized it with the stickers I lost. Trust me, last weekend, I couldn’t find Somara’s silver Honda Fit in a sea of other Honda Fits for a while. One time at the work parking lot, she almost tried to get into another parked a few cars away from hers. It’s either get an uncommon color or hide a Tile in the glovebox.
More about the new Prius later, we have a big day of running around on errands, eating, an in-store at Waterloo Records and then a fantastic concert.