Hi Folks,

I picked up my new '06 Prius monday evening (replaced an '06 Matrix which replaced an '03 Civic Hybrid, Matrix had bad blind spots .. almost had 3 accidents in 4 months).

My impressions so far are that I should have bought this rather than the Matrix from the beginning.

I love the way it drives and am getting 39.5 MPG so far (103 total miles on the car and it is still cold here in Massachusetts). The smart key system is so wonderful that I find myself wanting to find places to drive just so I can not use the key again.

One question I have is regarding the climate control. In looking back at old threads I get the impression that I should leave the "AC" in auto mode all the time and just set a temp via the buttons on the steering wheel and just forget about it. Is this correct?

Another question is on what the graph on the left side of the "Consumption" display really means. Does anyone know? Does a higher bar on the graph mean good or bad?

I have found myself setting the touch screen to the "Energy" screen (the one which shows the car wheels and engine stuff with the arrows) and adjusting my driving based on a combination of the arrows and the MPG indicator. Does anyone else do this?

Brian