The Easiest Way To Make Your Old Toyota Prius Feel New Again

For a time, driving an older model Toyota Prius still felt like a new experience. This was before practically every company offered some form of electric vehicle and the Prius felt like an environmentally friendly act of defiance. Nowadays, hybrids are everywhere and sales are through the roof (via Washington Post). Big trucks can be hybrids, there's now an electric Mustang, and these older Priuses are, despite their reliability, beginning to feel a bit dated in the modern world.

Luckily, when it comes to cars there are some pretty noticeable ways to modernize them. For some people, this may come in the form of painting the exterior. For others, these changes can be done to the interior to make the cabin stand out more than it did in its original form. There have always been fun ways to make your car feel new again, and the Toyota Prius is no exception. 

For many owners of older the model Toyota Prius, the biggest drawback is the outdated entertainment system — nowadays called the infotainment system — in the car. Although it may not seem like it, the first Prius was produced all the way back in 1997, according to Global Toyota. This means that, of course, the center console cluster is going to be outdated. The initial release was before most cars had great navigation, compact discs were still the dominant form of music consumption, and overall we simply didn't expect intuitive devices in our cars as we do now.

The easiest way to fix this is with the use of a plug-and-play device designed to modernize your old Prius. There are many great plug-and-play devices on the market for cars, but one suggestion for Prius owners specifically is a system from a company called Grom Audio. Writing for Torque News, Peter Neilson, the owner of an aging Prius, detailed his installation of Grom Audio's VLine Infotainment Upgrade, which adds CarPlay and Android Auto, among other things, to older Prius vehicles without the hassle of replacing the original hardware.

In addition to wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Audio support, the device adds voice activation, a hardware boost that includes an extra 3GB of memory, and there are also various apps and plugins that can be used. This system also adds navigation to your car for more convenient driving, works with both Wi-Fi and mobile device hotspots, and Grom Audio claims the VLine doesn't interfere with the car's factory functionality.

The great thing about plug-and-play systems is that they are generally easy to install, assuming you're not afraid to remove some dash pieces from your car to get to the infotainment center's plugs. Other ways of upgrading the entertainment system in your older Prius would require you to do things like cut wires and figure out where they go. With plug-and-play systems, the setup takes practically no time — after all, this is why it's called plug-and-play. To see the installation process for this particular device, check out this YouTube video from The Hybrid Guy.

Of course, you'll need to check to make sure whatever system you choose is compatible with your particular Prius model year. In the case of the VLine, the device certainly isn't cheap at around $700. However, assuming you plan to keep your older Prius for years to come, an infotainment upgrade may ultimately prove worth the cost and minor hassle, particularly if you spend a lot of time behind the wheel. The ability to easily connect your smartphone to your car is reason enough for many drivers to upgrade — not to mention it'll make your Prius feel almost new again.