For those that might remember me (and since I am not SUPER active on the forums, that's a small chance), I was on the verge of buying a MMH last year, but ultimately couldn't due to several issues that had popped up.

Ended up buying a used Prius. Which meant we still had the guzzling Ford Explorer which, while we loved, would kill us if we drove it more than the occasional trip needed when my wife and I needed 2 cars.

Well, problem no longer! Went to get an oil change at the Lincoln/Mercury dealer we bought the Prius at, and come to find they have a black MMH with moon and tune and premium package just arrived on the lot the day before (wasn't even on their inventory on the webpage yet). We were able to use the guy we used when we bought the Prius (who was a used car salesman but was GREAT, and we were glad they let him handle the new car sale).

And so a 30 minute oil change became the longest and most expensive oil change I've had yet, and perhaps the best one

And now we're 100% green on our vehicles! w00t!

 

Congrats!

 

Awesome, congratulations!

 

Tym - My congrats too! And since most of us don't own two Hybrids, I'm interested in hearing your personal opinions & comparisons between the Prius and the MMH. I'm sure there is an argument for either vehicle, and the Prius obviously wins the FE contest, but I'm sure the MMH wins the comfort test. But I'm just theorizing, since I don't own a Prius.

I'm sure many of us would want to read your comparisons. After all, we all love our hybrids and their technology.

 

Thanks to you, and everyone else with the congrats! It was a goal of my wife and I to get our old gas guzzlers out of our driveway, and I'm glad we were able to do so, and sooner than we both thought!

I will post my thoughts on the comparisons when I have more data .. I took a road trip from NJ to VA in the Prius last month, and I think we're doing the same trip in the MMH next week, so I'll have some direct comparison data that I will be happy to divulge.

One thing that stands out (FE comparison aside, that's obvious), is that the Prius was well designed from the perspective of "People keep a lot of crap in their vehicles, let's give them spaces to put it that won't take up the usable cargo area". In the MMH, you have the center console up front, the glove box, the door pockets, and that's pretty much it. In the Prius, you have the center console, drawer below the center console, glove box, box above the glove box, door pockets, and two rear storage areas that are under a flap, so don't intrude on the cargo space. I was actually able to fit everything I had stored in the Ford Explorer into the Prius, rather than the Mariner (the Mariner being the vehicle we traded the Explorer in for).

Granted, I knew this from the test drives, but it's one of those little things that you take for granted when you have, but probably wouldn't miss if you never had it.

I'll do a comfort comparison after the road trip next week!

 

Cool--congrats!!! I'm interested to hear your comparisons between the Prius and the MMH. My wife and I have an MMH and an HCH and it's interesting how different they both behave. Each system has it's pros and cons--too bad you can't pick and choose the good features of each car.

Looking forward to your comparison.

 

Hi Kristian,

I have the same cars as you. I have an 2008 Mercury Mariner Hybrid and we just got a 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid. Both great cars!

Shawn

 

As a recap, this is a comparison between a Prius and MMH of a trip from northern New Jersey to southwest Virginia, using two interstates for 98% of the trip. The trip was around 7 hours each way, and was driven in one shot, with just stops to get gas.

Some disclaimers before I get into the comparison, so that everyone knows what cars I was dealing with.

The Prius I have I bought used back in January. It had 47k miles on it, and for the road trip was around 53k, so it was obviously well broken in by not only the previous owner, but by my driving habits by the time I did the trip. Weather for the trip was cool but clear, traffic was light, and I drove the entire trip there and back. The Prius is a 2005, and is the fully loaded version.

The MMH was purchased a few weeks ago, brand new. It is the AWD version, with the Premium and Moon and Tune packages. The vehicle had ~1000 miles on it when we took this trip, so it is still very much in its break-in period, which I am sure affected some aspects of the behavior of the vehicle. Since I won't focus much on the FE comparison for obvious reasons, some other driving mechanics I mention might be attributed to this break-in. I drove 80% of the trip, taking a short nap on the return trip. The weather was raining for the entire trip both there and back, and weather was cool. Traffic was mostly clear (fortunately).

On both trips, I was able to drive similarly; that is - roughly 70-80 MPH for the duration. (Yes, I'm well aware of the MPG impact such speeds have on FE).

OK - disclaimer over, on to the comparison.

How does it feel to drive over a long period of time? - Both cars are quite comfortable to drive in. My wife likes to take naps, and was able to do so quite easily with both vehicles, much more comfortably than in vehicles we've owned in the past. The passenger seats in both vehicles reclined fully back onto the seat behind it, meaning it basically laid flat, which increased the comfort. The leather seats in the MMH did provide an increase in comfort over a long period of time, and the seat warmers were a nice touch considering how cold it was when we did have to step out. After driving for several hours, there were no signs of cramping after driving the MMH. With the Prius, at the end of the trip, I did have a little bit of cramping. Nothing I noticed during the drive, but it took a few minutes to shake the feeling once we were finished. I am 6'1", so shorter folks might not notice at all. All-in-all, the MMH, with the leather seats, and better seat adjustments thanks to the electronic controls, held up better to the long trip. Having a Passenger climate control ability was a nice touch as well.

Both vehicles were adequately "Fun" to drive, as I'm sure anyone who has driven one or the other can attest to. There's plenty of controls readily available to ensure an easy ride, and the navigation, energy and fuel economy screens are well designed in both. One slight annoyance that might just be a "me" thing is that on the MMH, the volume controls for the radio are on the right side of the steering wheel, rather than the left. Since I primarily drive with my left hand only on the wheel, at around the 9oclock position with my elbow resting on the door, the positioning of the volume controls forced me to use my right hand to change volume. And since the radio is located just behind the volume controls, it made little sense to use the steering wheel controls since I was already moving my right hand towards the radio anyway. Again, probably just a me thing, but I noticed.

Since I mentioned the style of my drive, I'll mention that it is slightly more comfortable to drive that way long distance in the MMH than the Prius. The plastic door frame I rest my arm on felt more solid on the MMH - there's a popping noise I sometimes hear from the plastic frame when I lift my arm off the door on the Prius, like I'm resting it right on a joint or something.

Both vehicles have an auto-darkening mirror, but the MMH lacks a way to turn the feature off; something I wished I could do when my wife was using the interior light to read. My mirror became so dark it was almost unusable because the interior light is located right in front of the light detector in the mirror. This behavior may also occur in the Prius (we didn't use the interior light on that trip), but since there is a way to turn the feature off, I would be able to still use the mirror if that was the case.

While it didn't rain on the Prius trip, I can say that the rear window wiper for the MMH is far more useful than the Prius, and that rear visibility as a whole is better in the MMH. The Prius has a nasty little blind spot on the driver's side where a car can be out of view of the left side mirror, and out of view of peripheral vision without looking over your shoulder to check your blind spot (Something I've always done anyway, but the Prius is the first vehicle I've driven where a vehicle can be 100% out of view for a moment - a disorienting experience).


How does the car handle? - Both cars on the long distance, higher speed trip handled just fine. I inflated the tires appropriately (44/42 for the Prius, 45 for the MMH), so bumps in the road were felt a little more, but nothing that jarred me from comfort. The MMH handled the bumps better than the Prius, which is to be expected. I was able to take a windy backroad in Virginia that lasted for around 7 miles on both trips, and found the Prius hugged the turns a bit better than the MMH (again, to be expected). I expected the MMH to feel floaty on the turns, but didn't notice such a sensation. What I DID notice, though, was that braking seemed sluggish as I was needing to slow down quickly coming into some turns with the MMH, almost as if the vehicle was reluctant to really engage the brakes. I have driven a lot of SUVs, and this took me by surprise, so I'd say the braking distance need is greater in an MMH than other vehicles -- something to keep in mind.

Back to the highway, both vehicles had no problem with power at high speeds, both gave me the juice needed to push from 70 to 100+ MPH with little hesitation. Two notes about the MMH that were noticeably different than the Prius. First, when accelerating at a high speed (to pass a vehicle or climb a hill), there is a considerable amount of engine noise that produces, particularly over 3500 RPM. This engine noise exists in the Prius too in similar situations (not as loud), but I felt like in the MMH, it was straining a little when pushed like that. The second thing that I noticed was that the MMH seems to not like travelling at speeds over 70. Not that it doesn't or can't, it just seemed to fight my foot when I would get my foot into what I considered a natural position for that speed. In every other vehicle I've driven, I have fairly quickly been able to get into a comfort zone with the accelerator, and be able to travel at a fixed speed without the use of cruise control or looking at the speedometer... I just knew if my foot was at a certain position for that pedal, I was going a certain speed. For whatever reason, I had a very difficult time establishing a consistent speed without having to actively think about what I was doing with the pedal at all times. When I thought I had my foot in a good position for 70MPH, I'd travel a bit and look down and see I'd drifted back down to 60 MPH. This happened constantly both there and back, so much so that I used cruise control for some of the trip out of frustration (I love driving and being in control when I drive.. so this was pretty frustrating for me to use something I pretty much loathe). For many people who come to these boards, this probably would be a blessing - the vehicle seems to want to be driven at a speed that enhances FE, but for me, it was infuriating at times. The Prius has no such issues, content to drive 80 MPH just as much as 60 and not fight my foot position. Again, both vehicles gave me the power I needed if I punched it, I just didn't want to have to keep forcing power down the MMH's throat to maintain a speed I wanted.

Both vehicles have plenty of power for the lower speeds, and I had no trouble maintaining speeds with either vehicle at non-highway speeds, so if you don't drive that fast, or don't really drive highways, than such a behavior should be a non-issue for you with the MMH.

Other impressions. I mentioned previously in this thread that I felt the Prius was better laid out in terms of maximizing space for its size. Both trips saw us traveling with a similar number of items (luggage and what-not), and all the stuff we brought fit fine in the trunk area. The difference, though, is that the Prius was actually holding far more than the MMH - I have all sorts of stuff stored in the hidden compartments (emergency road kits, additional lug nut remover, rope, paper towels, car cleaning stuff, extra motor oil, and much more). All of these items are in hidden storage spots, and therefore take up no space in the cargo area. If I put all those items into the MMH, I would probably have much less space in the vehicle, to the point that I would have had to put the seat down in order to accommodate what I could fit into the Prius without doing so. Sounds odd since the MMH is an SUV, but the storage area behind the rear seats is a little small. Fortunately, putting the rear seats down is very simple and quick, and adds to the interior space considerably, safely tucking the leather out of the way as well. Again, no fore-thought was put into the process: There's nowhere to put the headrests that you take off, since putting the seats down makes it flush with the floor, eliminating that area as a spot for the headrests, so you're forced to put the headrests into your cargo area. Little things, I know, but they're there.

The moon-roof the MMH has is a thing I didn't realize I missed so much in the Prius from vehicles I've owned in the past. It functions well, and slides into the vehicle when it opens, rather than sit atop the roof. The MMH also has tint on all the windows aside from the front ones (privacy glass) which the Prius lacks. I felt that the radio controls on the MMH, for the Satellite radio, were limited. There's no scrollable channel guide that allows you to see what's playing on other stations while staying on your current one. Presets must be set to make use of the wheel controls, which flip only through presets. And you can only have 5 presets per memory bank, and there's 3 memory banks that you can flip forward, but not back through (so if you are on the third bank, and want to go back to the first, from the steering wheel controls, you must then flip through CD, Line In, FM1, FM2 and AM before getting back to the first Sirius memory bank). Fortunately, I had my XM hooked up to the Line In, so I didn't fret over it, but if I only had Sirius to use, I would quickly be frustrated with the clunky interface. The Line-In on the MMH is a step up over the tape-deck converter I have to use in my Prius, but I know that in the '06 Prius and above, there is also a Line-In.

The navigation software is capable in both vehicles. Both have their quirks, but both function well. Being able to override the In-Motion Navigation Lockout in the Prius is nice, but again, that ability was removed from the '06 and beyond models, so that may not apply.

The sound system is quite nice in both vehicles - I can't tell what system the MMH has as it's not labeled. I suppose it is stock, but if it is, they have upgraded the quality of stock speakers since I last had them. The JBL speakers in the Prius work great at high volumes, as do the MMH (I used both vehicles as the radio for tailgates that we had, and they were plenty loud enough the be heard from quite a distance away with the doors open).

Speaking of using the vehicle when not in motion, I found the Prius needed to use the ICE once every 30 minutes or so during the tailgate (Vehicle on to use the radio, doors and tailgate open). The MMH seemed to need the ICE far more often, probably every 7 minutes or so. Both ran for about a minute before shutting off.

And speaking of ICE shutdown, it seems that the MMH takes quite a bit longer to "Warmup" than the Prius (by which I mean that it takes longer for the ICE to stop running by default when you first start it up).

The sunglasses holder in the MMH is rather flimsy, and fairly small. There is also no garage door opener thingy (I don't know the name of it, since I don't have a garage door and don't need it) in the MMH.
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Well, I think that about covers most of the things that come to my head right now about my comparison between the two vehicles. To pick one over the other is silly, since they are such drastically different vehicles.
If there's anything else that you want to know about that I didn't cover, let me know. I likely experienced it, and just forgot to mention it, since I didn't really write anything down, but went based on mental notes I took.

 

I own both an '06 Prius and an '05 FEH AWD.

The vehicles behave very different when cold-starting. The Prius starts in EV mode, then switches on the ICE after a few seconds (maybe 10 seconds after the car is able to move on EV power the ICE will switch on.). When the Prius stops it will _usually_ (but not always) switch off the ICE, EVEN if the engine is not fully warmed up. The FEH, on the other hand, will immediately start the ICE on startup. The ICE will not shut down until it's had a chance to warm up (whether the car is in motion or stopped). Ford's comment on this was that they're required to get the catalyst hot for emissions purposes. Of course nothing is LESS environmentally friendly than an engine which is emitting, but doing absolutely no useful "work". In other words, Ford's interpretation of the emissions rules is that they have to run the ICE until the catalyst is hot -- no matter how wasteful this is. Toyota's interpretation of the same rules is that you might as well only bother to 'heat' the the engine when the car also has some other useful function to perform (like propelling you forward) and it can shut down when you're stopped.

This extends into a fully warmed up car as well. Put a fully warmed up Prius in park (but not off) and the car will sit without running the engine -- almost no matter how long you let it sit there. Do the same thing to an FEH/MMH and it'll cycle the engine ever few minutes -- presumably just to keep the catalyst hot.

This is the sort of thing you probably wouldn't pick up on (even reading the forums) unless you own both vehicles. Other differences are largely just a matter of personal taste (comfort, ride, performance, cargo, amenities, etc.)

 

My understanding is that the (Toyota) Highlander Hybrid also runs until the engine warms up the catalytic converter. I'm wondering if it somehow has to do with SUV vs car,