<p>There seem to be a lot of Prius-knowledgeable folks out there - so I’m hoping to capitalize on that!</p>
<p>I’m in the market for a Prius, and after reading about the options, thought a base model, with package #2, would suit the bill. However, this morning I was looking at Consumer Reports, and while the Toyota Prius Touring was rated 3rd with a score of 80, the Toyota Prius base was rated 11th with a score of 68! No rationale is given for the difference in scores.</p>
<p>So I’m appealing to the CC Consumer Reporters. Can anyone enlighten me as to what features of the Touring model make it so much more desirable? The only difference I really understand is 16-inch wheels rather than 15-inch wheels.</p>
<p>checking in… no reply yet … good!</p>
<p>It’s too late now. Please, I don’t want to hear anything negative about the touring model. I ordered it last night, and am joining the thousands of you logging on to the local dealership webpage to see where I am in line.</p>
<p>Turns out that only around 5% of the Priuses (or would the pleural be Prii?) sold in the US are the touring model. After learning more about the differences, I decided that the touring model was what I wanted.</p>
<p>I was in the market for a Prius until recently – and we had also decided that the touring model was the one for us. I believe that it gets slightly worse gas mileage – put probably not enough to be significant.</p>
<p>We decided to wait on getting a Prius – Toyota will be redoing the Prius for the 2009 model year and we wanted to wait.</p>
<p>[2009</a> Prius | 2009 Toyota Prius Hybrid Review | HybridCars](<a href=“FASTPANEL”>FASTPANEL)</p>
<p>Toyota is pretty clever with their packaging in that they typically have a high-end model which costs way more than the midrange model but they put things in the high-end model that are attractive to a lot of buyers. I recall the price range of the minivan from about low-20s to low-40s. On my Avalon, the price for the base model with a few options was 25 while the next model up was another $8K.</p>
<p>They probably use methods to squeeze the most out of customers similar to what universities do.</p>
<p>Well, in my case, the touring model was less than $1k more than the base, and came with options that I would have had to pay more for to add to the base model - in particular, the HID headlights. And, of course, there’s that spoiler… hopefully it will increase the cool factor for this middle-aged Mom.</p>
<p>Biggest drawback: longer wait.</p>