Special Direct From Japan – Toyota Prius
November 22, 2008 – MOON NOOZ No.056 There’s been a lot of talk, especially recently, about Toyota and their HYBRID lineup and one of them that’s broken the barrier of the mainstream car market is the Toyota Prius. MOONEYES has many options and accessories for the Prius as Shige Suganuma owns one and is constantly changing its look. Here’s a blog entry he posted recently about his daily driver.
Lately, the price of gasoline in Japan has also been coming down again and depending on where you buy it’s about $4.76/gallon (¥119/liter) for regular gas. It really was good timing when we purchased the Toyota Prius.
A short time ago we mounted MOON Wheel Discs thinking it may boost gas mileage, so we went with the Lake Style look that only MOON Discs can produce.
The way we did it was use four spare tire wheels from a Subaru Legacy, mount Michelin 135 x 15 tires on the front and 165 x 15 on the rear, then lowered the body as far as it could go. It matched the car real good and had a proper Bonneville stance! Awesome!
Then it came time for the test drive. We drove around and even went onto the express way. The entire time, the Traction Control light on, meaning “Traction Control” was continuously in use! As a result, no acceleration! It just crawled along. It was also obviously the car was lowered too far as it kept bottoming out over and over.
 Back to the normal height with Speed Master Wheels. |
The next day it was raised back up. I don’t have the desire to put Air Suspension so for now I am thinking of what to do next.  We just received new accessories for the Prius and they were quickly put on the car as that were very simple to mount.
The accessories are chrome plated door handle covers for the front and back, side marker lamp covers/rings and side mirror covers. All of which go right over the stock equipment. It comes with two-sided tape and mounts effortlessly. |
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Right now, the Prius gets about 40 miles/gallon (17km per liter). A full tank of gas lasts about one month. |
by Shige
