I noticed the CR annual auto issue dings the 2015 and 2016 v on one thing: "In-Car Electronics" the owners are saying bad reliability mark there, everything else is great. Do we know what that bad reliability rating on "In Car Electronics" is all about?
good question, because i wouldn't consider toyota's horrendous entune and gps unreliable. you can always count on them to disappoint.
I think you will find the reliability of electronics in all brands sketchy. Most of it comes from the phone integration, apple vs. android. As I don't use either, I don't care.
FWIW my wife and I have never had an issue with car/iPhone communications with our 2016 Prius v Three. We use BT with her iPhone 4 and my iPhone 5s. Please note we don't stream music but do use the system to answer phone calls and read/listen to text messages while driving. Never have had a head unit freeze as noted in some of the Gen 4 posts. I do agree the Entune system is junk and I simply don't use it. So far the nav has worked as advertised and gotten us to wherever we wanted to go. I don't plan on upgrading the nav maps though. Too expensive as far as I am concerned.
No issues on the 2012 v Five with iPhones, Androids or Windows Phones. No Entune in use, for any of them. No Nav issues. What's not to like?
Hopefully...nothing. I wouldn't ask if I was not thinking of snatching one up. Lightly used is tax efficient in VA.
Actually it's not a "bad reliability rating". What that chart indicates is "worse than average". There isn't actually any real indicator of what that means other than there's a greater than 3% rate of problem reports. What a "problem" consists of is also not specified, but this is a summary of owner surveys so it could be anything. Also no indication of the actual number of respondents in the V category.
...right, not too many v's out there in the the context of getting enough survey responses, especially when you start parsing that per each model year Looking at our v electronics/audio thread, I am hard pressed to immediately see any generic malfunction complaints for 2015 and 2016.
wanted to follow this post. I am considering a V wagon after my cr-v lease is up. My wife has the standard prius 2013 model.
36k miles, I replaced the wiper blades. Other than that, just fluids on my 42 mpg '12. Sample quantity 1. Vs are selling much better in other countries than in the US. Unsure if we will get any next generation as RAV4 has taken that space. Drove one yesterday with a sound measuring device and was impressed. If I didn'the know I'd never have guessed it was a hybrid which may appeal to some. The CVT was much less obvious.
Drove larger too but smooth and seemed about 4db quieter. I'm at the point where I either spend for tires (they have much more than legal tread but I'm very sensitive to water evacuation characteristics and noise and they are marginal to me after 35k. Mich) and a 12v (just because of age, no symptoms) or trade. There is a 1.2k miles used one at a dealer 40 miles from me spec'ed the way I'd spec it (everything) and about $4k cheaper than new. I'm tempted. Though I'd lose a lot of in town MPG and that is where 90% of my trips are even if the far larger part of the miles driven are 55-70MPH.
I feel like the Rav 4 Hybrid is very nice, but it's really not as good as a Prius V as far as economy is concerned. Even with electronic AWD, it still takes a hit. Most people say they get mid 30s in the rav4 hy.
The Rav4 Hy is new to fuelly but the general spot most users get is 34 last I looked. Contrast that with an overall 42 for a 20% drop from what I am used to. Still it is the features that interest me. I'm 74 and the electronic nannies may help. It is unusual for me to be thinking new car as most cars we have kept for 9-10 years or until serious trouble and I don't anticipate trouble with the v. Have to try my wife's back in the Rav4 and see if it is more comfortable for her.
Hi Mike! (Live just up the road from you.) You are smart to try out the front and back seats in every car you research. Seat comfort and height off the ground do become much more important as we age. We have friends who just upgraded to a FORD SUV from a Fiesta because the wife's knees hurt getting into and out of the lower Fiesta. I thought that the 2017 Four we just bought might be a problem for my two replaced knees, but so far I am okay with the lower car height than that of our 2013 V Three. (For those without experience with new knees, they are not supposed to bend below 90 degrees when you are sitting.) When I recently had to use a wheelchair for three months after major foot surgery, it fit in both of our Prii, which was a relief. The raising of the tech bar each year does make it harder for seniors to figure out and use the technology. Hubby is very low tech and just ignores it. I try to understand most of it, but it still is quite complicated. But I do love parts of technology that make me a safer driver, especially after seeing four cars head-on each other two minutes ahead of me this afternoon near our home. Fortunately the speed limit is 45pmh on that divided road, so no one died that I know of. It does make your more appreciative of the safety improvements in newer cars.)
