Prius

"Cathy F."

Me neither, I did not know that they were on more expensive vehicles. I want them to trickle down to our level quicker now. Tomes

Huh? All I want the side mirrors to do - well, at least the driver's side mirror - is to be able to flip to a 'night' position (& then flip back to the position that one had them to set for reg. daytime position), as the rear-view mirror does. To get rid of the glare from the headlights of the car in back of you - which can be very distracting. Beats fiddling around with the mirror while driving, or putting up with the glare.

Cathy

Exactly.

Cathy

Definitely. If they came as a standard feature, great. If not, it's an option I'd gladly pay for. That glare can be super-distracting.

Cathy

What is so difficult with adjusting them down a click. I do it and find not hard at all. Most of the time though the car following has their lights dimmed and so is not a problem. I think you have a tempest in a tea pot here.

Every one of these little demands put a higher price on the vehicle, sure this little gadget maybe costs the mfg a few dollars more, but when you start adding up all of the little extras it is a significant amount. What happened to the spartan approach as in the old Beatle. Remember the global warming furor will force us back to more simple designs in convenience features because of the cost of raw materials and the processing of it, so we'll need to get used to making do with less, follow my drift?

It's more than a click. It's a bunch of clicks (then it's a PITA to get it back to the exact position it was in for reg. driving.) If it was one click, that'd be no different than having a 'night' flip position, which would render this whole conversation moot.

I do it and find

Does your rear-view mirror flip to a night position & then back again in one click each? What's so difficult re: understanding that it'd be a nice convenience if the side-view mirror(s) did the same thing?

How spartan is your own present car?

Cathy

Remember

You just don't know how to do it correctly.

Because it is electrically operated you'd need something to tell it to go to a particular dim position, a special switch, a limit switch or yet another microprocessor. Mirrors aren't people ya know.

Yeah, right. Me & a slew of other people. If it requires only one simple click & Bob's your uncle, then why is it offered on the cars others mentioned earlier in the thread?

I didn't mean mechanically/electronically! I meant usage-wise. But you knew that, right?

??

Not all that spartan, perhaps?

Cathy

I get what they give me. I'd be very satisfied if ALL cars were pure transportation devices. Now-a-days they are your bedroom, kitchen, and den all rolled up into a car. With TV, stereo, ipod, iphone and all the junk inbetween available. It's ridiculus.

Oh, baloney. One can for the most part - & sometimes completely - pick & choose just which options & packages come with the car you buy. If it's truly a matter of you getting what they give you, then it means they sell you the most loaded-up-to-the-gills, expensive car they have right there on the lot, & you say, "Okay, that's fine with me; I'll take what you give me." If *that's* true, then you must be a car salesman's dream come true.

So... unless you're an incredibly naive car buyer, or have pots of dough to spend, &/or are merely full of a lot of hot air & evading answering the question since it would be at odds with your Beetle statement - not all that spartan, perhaps?

Cathy

I don't get your gaff, but Toyota offers a vehicle which has packages. When it's bought the purchaser most of the time does not have an option of removing the options, execpt for tires. You have to take what's in the package.

What about the rest of what I said? Fast forward ahead, If you are truly a global warming advocate would you agree that in the future vehicles will be much more spartan and VW beetle like, with better fuel mileage, but with less extras such as air conditioning?

Funny that, since I usually manage to get the exact options I want. The car model's brochure lists which options come on their own, which come with which packages, etc. - so it's all figured out before I step foot into the dealership to talk about buying. If they don't have what I want on the lot (& so far, they never have), they do a search. If I have to wait a few weeks until what I want turns up, I wait. My last car came from some dealership in PA, & the one before that came from one out in Rochester. IOW - you certainly don't have to 'get what they give you' - you have the choice of which options & packages you want, & which you don't, & are not ties to whatever happens to be on the dealer's lot. But you knew that, right?

BTW - you *still* didn't answer the question... But you knew that, too, right?

Nope, I don't agree. They'll figure ways to incorporate the niceties while getting extra mpgs. AFAIK, the Prius already takes a/c into acct., for ex. And for some odd reason, I have a real problem imaging people in the South going w/o a/c in their cars... Or even in the North on days like today when it's in the 90's.

Cathy

Was the question how spartan is my own car? If that was the question then my answer is it is 04 Sienna mini van, the LE model. I bought it off the lot, not a special order. I did not have any way to remove the options, I had to puchase as it was. I might have been able to order different tires at a higher price. Was that the question and did I answer it satisfactory for you?

But the A/C will hold down the gas milage which would be bad for global warming.

I can't believe you are asking this! The question, " How spartan is your own present car?" has been left intact in the last 8 posts!

Not spartan.

I bought it

Only if you wanted the one that was on the lot; you didn't *have* to purchase that vehicle. If you didn't like that particular one, the dealer could've done a search for one that you *did* want.

Huh - I wish I could do that with the Corolla, since I hate the tires it comes with, & change over to another set as soon as possible. I asked for my last car - no choice of tires.

See above. Literally.

Semi. Didn't say which options it has. OTOH, good enough I suppose; you were advocating bare-bones/spartan cars, yet have a Sienna LE; not a spartan vehicle. Nothing wrong with a Sienna - just doesn't mesh with that post of yours.

All of this because I'd like the option of a driver's side mirror which would flip back & forth from daylight to night angles, as a rear-view mirror does. Holy mackerel...

Cathy

The Toyota Avalon has them, or find a sugar daddy!

The auto-dimming interior and exterior mirrors don't flip like conventional prism mirrors do. Instead, liquid crystals darken the glass. Our Lexus and Sequoia have auto-dimming interior rear view mirrors and the Lexus has auto-dimming outside mirrors. They work great, but I'll admit that the feature has spoiled me so now it seems like a pain to have to reach for a switch or button to dim the mirrors ;-)

Let's see, I'll play along a little bit more. I had to trim because it's getting so long and hard to find where you posted your last post after my last post.

There were two identical Siennas on the lot, paint color was different. The dealer had no idea when they would be getting more in, remember this was Sept 03 when I bought the 04. And it was a new model year, completely redesigned Sienna. So I had a choice to buy then or wait perhaps months till the lot filled up which it never did.

If I'm not mistaken and I could be, most of the cars that sell new can be upgraded with better tires. The tires that come with the car are not usually top shelf unless you buy a supersport model or top of the line Corolla maximus flabious.

It has a radio, A/C, cloth seats, power brakes, power steering, simulated chrome hubcaps 16 inch tire rims, 3.3 L V6, power side exterior mirrors (which I have to dim myself) Manual seat adjustment, automatic transmission, anti-lock brakes, lets see, I think that covers most of it. BTW, these are not options. The dealer very generously threw in some floor mats, :). Very little is optional. Pretty spartan for this model and vintage. I could have bought a CE model which is bottom of the Sienna line, but they didn't have any. Hopefully this answers your question?

That would work for me, too. As long as it gets rid of that glare, I'd be happy.

Our Lexus and

Now that is rather pathetic. ;-)

Cathy

You still seem to be missing the point I was making in that part of my post. If you didn't really want either of the 2 Siennas the dealer you were doing business with had on *his* lot, he could've done a search of other dealers' lots to find one that met your choices of options/pkgs/color/interior. Which could take just days or sometimes weeks, IME. None of my cars - since '76 - have been bought off the lot of the dealers from whom I bought my cars - they've all come from other dealerships after they did a search. So far, the dealerships have never had the exact car I've wanted. I figure if I'm going to shell out that huge amount of money, I'm going to get what I really want - not what just happens to be sitting there.

My Corolla is an LE. In fuure, I will keep asking if a tire upgrade is possible at purchase time, but as of '04, that wasn't in place.

But spartan compared with what you were advocating? Nope.

I could have bought a CE model which is

See above. If you really wanted a CE instead of an LE, something tells me you didn't *ask* for one to be found for you.

Cathy

Hopefully this