I rented a Prius this past weekend, and drove it quite a bit around town (Los Angeles area), on the highway, and through the Los Padres National Forest. Overall I was very impressed, but I have a few lingering concerns about it. <br><br>The most important is safety: since my two previous cars (both Honda Accords) ended up being totaled in crashes that included being hit on the driver's door (and I was able to walk away from both of them), and side impact crash test data seems to be hard to come by for the Prius, I was wondering if anyone here can comment on how its door and frame construction compares to a Camry or Corolla...or a new Accord, for that matter. If not, can anyone point me toward a source for some useful facts and figures? I've already tried the IIHS and NHTSA sites.<br><br>Secondly, I will want to install the Kenwood MiniDisc head unit (bought only 4 months ago) from my Honda, but it looks as though Toyota has cleverly designed the CD option receptacle so it will not accomodate a standard DIN head unit (hence forcing the owner to only use a Toyota CD player?). Has anyone in this group managed to put a CD or MD unit in their Prius other than the Toyota CD unit offered as an option?<br><br>Thanks in advance,<br><br>Michael K.

Given my recent run-in with the rear-end of a spinning-out-of-control Porsche, I've unfortunately had more first-hand experience than most concerning Prius crash-worthiness. <br><br>However, I too haven't seen specific info on Prius _side_ impact data. I guess the Prius is still too precious (hard to come by) to wack them by the half dozen upside the head into targets of various stripes -- _and_ tell us about it.<br><br>Based on Priusman's (ee_of_ee's?) statements here, and Toyota's literature, the US Prius meets US federal vehicle safety standards (which means ... if you get hit by a US government vehicle you're not subject to immediate arrest? ;-) Sorry!)<br><br>Question: Those of you who have the super-duper Prius repair manuals, does it look like there's any room _inside_ the Prius' doors to install some additional home-made steel bars? If so, I may be interested in having something fabricated.<br><br>In my accident, if I had been driving just a tad faster, the Porsche may have made contact with my Prius directly at my driver's side door instead of my driver's side front corner. As expected, I strongly doubt the door would have done nearly as well as the Prius' front end protecting me from horrible injury/death &lt;shudder&gt;.<br><br>Other than the _l-o-n-g_ wait for a Prius' delivery, the Prius' weaker-than-Civic crash test results are (for me) the Prius' biggest drawback. And although the 2002 Prius' side airbags are a worthy option, and I plan on ordering them for Prius #2, I have strong doubts they would have saved my life in the accident I had in Prius #1.<br><br>... talk about sacrifices we make in the name of "social responsibility", et al. Hmm!<br><br>- Peter

There is another Yahoo group called PriusMods (for modifications) that demonstrates the ability to do some amazing things with the Prius. Adding GPS, other displays, rear cam, etc.<br>I think this URL will work, but if not just go to <a href=http://groups.yahoo.com target=new>http://groups.yahoo.com</a> and search for PriusMods.<br>Try <a href=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/priusmods target=new>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/priusmods</a><br><br>tinpan

In Message 5673 Peter asks:<br>&lt;snip&gt;<br>&gt; Question: Those of you who have the super-duper<br>&gt; Prius repair manuals, does it look like there's <br>&gt; any room _inside_ the Prius' doors to install <br>&gt; some additional home-made steel bars? <br>"Somewhere", there are pics of a new (sob..) Prius that got hit in the driver's door by a pick-up. You could plainly see the outline of the side-impact protection bars in the crushed door skin.<br>The "New Car Features" book also goes into great detail covering the Prius impact protection.<br><br>Waiting twice just isn't "fair",<br>Bill Powell<br>(Prius: Just Drive It!)

In Message 5693 mo_mpg asked:<br>&lt;snip&gt;<br>&gt; I'm curious if there's room inside the Prius' <br>&gt; doors to add _more_ steel ... that's why I was <br>&gt; wondering if someone who has the appropriate <br>&gt; Prius repair/service manual could take a peek.<br>The service manual doesn't really show that much true detail - mostly "not to scale" drawings. To know, for sure, you'll probably have to remove the inside door cover and do some good, old-fashoned detective work.<br>Look for unbroken space that has available high-strength mounting points available at both ends of the door - traditionally the hinges and the latch. Any other "weak" mounting is just as likely to propel that part of the door inward in a collision, making the net effect of the added "crash bars" worse than without.<br><br>JMHO,<br>Bp<br>(My Prius: A FAST moving target!)

Yo Mo,<br><br>I posted a door-open pic in PriusMods files that shows the panel removed.<br><br>Write me when you're ready to disassemble yr Prius 2's doors and I'll make it painless.<br><br>Jeff

Caramba! Is that a BNC connector (implying coax) on the little black box in the top left? I know the body ECU communicates with the locks and windows by serial link, but I would not have thought that the BEAN (body electronics area network) actually went into the door!<br><br>Burns