11-16-2005, 07:37 PM
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Geek
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Location: San Diego
Hybrids: Camry Hybrid
Posts: 833
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Pictures of the Opal Silver Blue 2006 HCH
I picked up the car today at 4pm which was the earliest I could (job). The sun was very low but still up so it did afford me the opportunity to take daylight pictures, though they're not as good as they could be. I took them all at the dealer before I even drove it. Click each picture link to view the picture.
Side View #1,
Side View #2
My legs aren't really 10 feet high, but these pictures do a good job of showing the car's color... the second is probably more accurate than the first since the setting sun seems to red-shift the first.
Rear View
See the yellow fire hydrant to the left of the driver's-side door? The red car behind it is my VW Jetta I was trading in. My first and only car for 6 years. Well, out with the old, in with the new.
Shade
This picture is of the side facing away from the sun. Also you can see the tan interior.
Impressions:
A full review, and more pictures, will come this weekend, so for now I'll just post my impressions after a single drive from the dealership back to work, and shortly afterwards back home.
Steering is alot better than the previous HCH; when I took a '05 onto the highway, I nearly careened off the lane on a turn (exaggeration) because I wasn't expecting to have to steer so sharply just to follow a smooth gentle curve. The new HCH has much better steering, though it seemed oddly slippery to me at highway speeds. I don't know if this is due to the tires or the steering... I'm hoping the former since that would mean it can actually be fixed. At least there was no dead zone.
The controls are done very very well. Everything is easy to access and push, analog controls are used for fan, temperature, volume, and radio tracking, and everything lights up in a really cool teal color at night (pictures of this on the weekend). The steering wheel does light up its audio and climate controls, but at less than half the brightness of everything else. Since the Prius had the same fault, if I remember correctly, I'm going to assume this was by design. They are easy to read when looking directly at them but they are impossible to see when looking away, which is probably a good thing so as not to be distracting. At first I didn't think they lit up at all until I glanced down at them. 
The view out the front windshield is quite good, especially compared to the Prius. The cowl (bottom of the windshield) is a bit high but definitely not excessively so, and the windshield is very wide so the corner pillars aren't a problem. But I should mention I'm 5'6 and sit relatively high up and forward.
I won't report mileage until I've gone at least a full tank, but preliminary observations suggest I definitely won't be seeing Prius-like figures the way I drive, but I find this car so much more enjoyable that I don't mind at all.
Oh, and the car had 5.0 miles on the odometer when I picked it up. I guess that's what happens when you buy the car ahead of time; most dealers honor the fact that it's yours and don't let others drive it.
Last edited by CGameProgrammer; 11-16-2005 at 07:43 PM.
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