Are ALL of the 2010 Prius Toyota supplied features installed in Japan, or are some of them installed in the United States. One of the features I wonder about are the leather seats. I have heard that every Prius is shipped with cloth seats, and then some of them are updated with leather seats upon arrival. Another feature I wonder about is the moonroof with solar powered ventilation. Is that done here in the United States? No, I'm not on some kind of mission - just curious.
Solar roof and leather are options that come from Japan. You can get port installed leather but as pics have shown it doesn't look quite as nice as factory installed leather.
If it's a factory option, it's installed at the factory in Japan. If it's a dealer (or port) installed option (e.g. leather seats, cargo net, wheel locks etc), then they're installed after they're unloaded from the ship. The port-leather (assuming you're not in SET or GST) is factory leather that's installed at the port. It only covers the seats. The door panels are still cloth and the steering wheel is polyurethane. If you're in SET or GST... well it's anyone's guess what they install.
After doing a Google search, I found out what SET and GST mean. Gulf States Toyota (GST) is one of only two US Toyota distributors not owned by Toyota Motor Sales. The other is JM Family Enterprises' Southeast Toyota Distributors, or SET. The GST group distributes Toyota vehicles in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas. The SET group (SET) is the world’s largest franchised distributor of Toyota vehicles and distributes vehicles in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina. So I am confused. Are you saying that factory leather seats are ALWAYS installed at a U.S. port and NOT in Japan unless the vehicles are for either GST or SET distributors? Seems strange. I've always been under the impression that when a vehicle leaves the factory (regardless of which manufacturer it is), it arrives at the dealerships unchanged.
No. If you order a IV or V (i.e. factory leather), it will be installed at the factory in Japan. If you order a II or a III with port leather option, it will be installed at the port. What I meant is that GST and SET tend to add whatever they want (because they're not owned by TMS) so you'll see people complain that the dealer added pinstriping or "Toyoguard" or some other ridiculous accessory to all their vehicles and have the customers pay for that. In addition, some "port leather" installed on vehicles heading to GST or SET regions may not be factory leather. The dealers in those regions may subcontract a 3rd party installer to install leather for them. This is why it gets confusing and some people think Toyota's doing all of this when it's really the region that's adding the crap. Now you know why there's so much conflict (and conflicting information b/c people don't realise there are separate regions). In Canada, everything is factory installed unless it's a dealer-installed accessory. However, small items that would be typically be dealer-installed accessories but come standard on the vehicle are installed at the dealer to minimise damage (e.g. wheel locks, mudguards, floor mats)
