Clarinetist

I changed the factory antenna to an aftermarket shark fin antenna, a la BMW, shortly after I bought the car. It works as well as the whip, and has no problems in the car wash. The antenna is available on the www.PriusChat.com site.

We drive our 2006 Prius from Anaheim, CA to Mammoth lakes, in the Eastern Sierras. It's 340 mile drive, to an altitude of over 8500'. The longest climb is 4000', up the Sherwin grade. Generally the traction battery is pretty well used up at the top, but the ICE pulls the car up pretty well. It's working hard, but no problem.

Hello to all. I just joined the List today and really like what I see. My ride is a 2006 Prius, package #8, with about 30K miles on it. I've added new rims, the factory XM module, a chassis stiffener plate, shark fin antenna, display sun shade and a rear bumper guard. It's really a great car, with good mileage. The Prius is, basically, a fun car to drive. Happy New Year!

My 2006 Prius started showing intermittent failure of the driver's side HID head light at 27K miles. This problem seems to be endemic with the 2006 model. Toyota issued a TSB for this problem, and my dealer just today replaced both front lights, under warranty. That would have cost me around $1200, since the bulbs are very expensive, and they must remove the bumper to change the lamps. Anybody else had headlight problems?

The factory tires on my 2006 Prius (Goodyear Integrity) lasted just 27,000 miles, and were quite noisy. I just replaced them with a set of Pirelli P3000s, with an 85,000 mile warranty. They are quieter, and have improved the handling of the car. The car dealer said he generally sees life between 25-35K miles on Prius tires. The mileage has shown about a 2-3 mpg improvement, too. When I bough these Pirelli's, I replaced the factory rimes with some snazzy, yet lighter, polished alloy rims. They sure look better than those awful factory rims.

I have a 2006 Prius, with about 30K miles on it. My MPG averages 35-40 in town, and 45-50 on road trips. I do run the a/c almost all the time, because of asthma problems, but I don't think that would affect the mileage too much, since the a/c runs off its own electric motor. I keep the tires at 42/40 lbs and really don't baby the car. Using hypermileage techiques I've gotten as high as 62 mpg, but the folks around me don't appreciate it! Speed is of the essence in SoCal......

I bought my factory extended warranty (10 yr/100K miles) on PriusChat.com, from a dealer in MA, for $975.