I noticed a couple of months ago, on my trip to San Francisco, that apparently the Prius is aerodynamic enough to the point where from light to all but the heaviest rain, you don't need the windshield wipers off. The water just forms drips and blows right off at highway speeds. I figured this out quite accidentally while driving on the interstate in very very light rain, too light for wiping at even the longest intervals. I tried it out in heavier and heavier rain and found it to still work nicely. I drove though several hours of heavy rain with the wipers off. Anyone else noticed this? Does it happen on other cars?
Apply Rain-X or a similar product to your windshield. Even on regular cars you can get away without running the wipers, except in the heaviest rain if you have a fresh application of Rain-X. I actually hadn't noticed that the Prius was any better than any other car I've driven at keeping water off the windshield w/o wipers. I've driven on the freeway in light and heavy rain and had to run the wipers in both cases.
Most cars with slanted windscreens(windshields) are like that. I could do the same in my Chrysler Sebring converiblr.( top up in the rain, ofcourse).
Have you noticed that at speed water does not even hit the back window on the gen 3 Prii (03-04)! The only time I get water spotting is in stop and go traffic.
