Rosher.Net

Ok, so I’ve just ordered the Prius, a T4; I didn’t want to pay the not inconsiderable extra for the T-Spirit options. The extras were Sat-Nav (I have a perfectly fine and transportable Tom-Tom), the Parking Fairy (which after a couple of dozen attempts on private land has failed utterly to park, more often driving into the kerb or the cones I put out to simulate other vehicles – like I’m going to try that in the real world!) and Bluetooth connectivity for the mobile phone.

Now the Bluetooth would have been a real benefit as I take a lot of calls when driving. My area manager agreed that I could have the Bluetooth option fitted at his cost because those calls are all work related and necessary. But Toyota, they say no… Apparently (and we only got to the bottom of this after going through the Toyota Knowledge Base with helpful young lady at HQ) the T4 has an up-spec’d stereo which is incompatible with the Bluetooth interface! It’s an option on the T3 and standard on the T-Spirit, but not available at all on the T4 which, cleverer readers will recall, I’ve just ordered.

So. Nice shiny new car… bloody great lump of car-kit screwed to the dash. 100 ppoints (prat points – a valuable indicator of usefulness, or not) to Toyota designers.