I Have their newest July issue where they rate both the base Prius and the touring edition on their 0-100 point scale. The overall score for the base model is 68 and the Touring model is 80. In last months issue they tested a Touring model for the first time, I knew they liked the Touring more, but I didn't realize it would score that much higher in their overall tests. C
Those rankings are old--based on the 04 models. They haven't caught up with the recent market upheavel in May due to gas prices yet.
How did they base the conparison on 04's? I bought a Touring as soon as I could an 07 in November of 06.
The report is on pp. 51 and these scores are under "Overall road-test score" with separate columns for "Price", "MPG", and "Reliability." From what I can tell, their "road-test" has more to do with safety and handling. Now if operating costs, MPG, has any meaning: 44 - Prius Base (68 road-handling) 42 - Prius Touring (80 road-handling) 37 - Honda Civic Hybrid (72 road-handling) 34 - Honda Fit (subcompact, 75 road-handling) 34 - Toyota Yaris (subcompact, 36 road-handling) I suspect "Consumer Reports" will get a few comments from the membership. Bob Wilson
Consumer Reports road tested the 2004 Standard Prius and the 2008 Touring Edition. There's a good recent detailed discussion of the comparison in the following thread: http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-main-forum/47917-consumer-reports-drives-touring-edition.html
i think it's interesting that they got 2mpg fewer with the Touring. I wondered if the Touring got lower mpg (though negligible) just from my personal experience...
