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From what local cabbies who drive Prii tell me, the battery does a lot better if the car gets driven more often, say no more than 2-3 days of inactivity, that one "little old lady" ended up needing a new battery after only about 3 years as she didn't drive it much.
The Prius makes most sense for people who do a lot of stop and go driving. For dedicated country boys like me, a conventional gas-powered car will do almost as well without the battery hassle.
The cabbies also say the Prius is hard on tires, it's heavier than it looks.
For my money, I'd rather have a Lotus Elise - 35 MPG and mucho fun, rather than the Prius' eco-nerd image and lack of dynamism.
We have an '07 Prius which my dh uses for his 40 minute highway commute. Gets 48 - 50 mpg and costs less than $20 to fill up with premium gas.
It's fully loaded and we actually really like it. It's less exciting than our old Mercedes ML500, but that gas saving really helps. The navi system is also far better than the Merc which was crap.
We bought a new Prius in 2006. It wasn't "top of the line" - out the door for around $24K .... and a federal tax credit of $3150! That was sweet, and frankly one of the reasons we bought the Prius at that time. Tax credits are still available on some makes and models of hybrids ... but not the Prius.
It has 55K trouble-free miles on it now. Summer mileage we can get 50 mpg or more; winter mileage is in the mid-40's
My wife recently drove it from northern VA to Savannah, GA and back, taking a bunch of stuff to our daughter, and averaged 52 mpg on I-95.
Hybrid batteries - as mentioned, they are under warranty for a long time/lots of miles (usually 8 years/100K miles, but in California, it's 10 years/150K miles). If our battery had to be replaced today and I had to pay for it, it would be $2600 (first generation Prius hybrid batteries run $2300). But we're a long way from being in that position.
Would I trade in whatever paid-off vehicle I had just to get a Prius or other hybrid? No. But would I seriously consider getting a hybrid if I was going to buy a new vehicle? Absolutely. There are more hybrid models available each year, and if I'm gonna have a car payment anyway (right now I don't - we paid the Prius off earlier this year), I might as well save some money on gas.
I looked a lot at the Prius and the Camry Hybrid. Spent two years trying to figure what to buy.
Kia put the Sorento on a big time sale so I looked at it, again.
Starting with the numbers Toyota gave me for purchase of a Camry Hybrid, what they would give me for my trade, and doing the same with the Sorento, here's where I ended up:
Assuming $6.00 a gallon the day I drove off the lot, it would take me nine (9!) years to break even on the difference in cost for the vehicles and gas. I bought the Sorento.
So now I have an AWD SUV instead of a Camry with virtually no trunk space, and the price of gas has dropped like a rock. Unless gas prices go absolutely nuts, like $10 a gal or so, I'm going to be selling the Sorento before I would have broke even.
I'm way ahead. And I love this vehicle! That V6 really kicks and the mileage, mixed, has been about 19. Once I get used to it I think I will do better. It has a pretty sensitive gas pedal and my trade-in didn't. I'm having to pay attention so I don't jack rabbit my starts.
So far I've nothing to dislike about it and a lot to like.
If you spent two years looking, at two sedans in particular, and ended up buying an SUV, I suggest that maybe we're talking apples and oranges here.
If I were in the market for an SUV, I'd certainly give the Sorento a serious look - the current $5000 rebate on the Sorento is very, very nice!
Yeah, that did come across a bit weird, didn't it?
We looked at everything from Murano, to the Mazda CX's, Honda's, Malibu, Subaru, Saturn Vue, RAV, etc. I really spent a lot of time on it. I just couldn't find the right combination of price/features/style that fit.
We were a day away from the Murano and the salesman just blew us off. Never called back, and when I called him three days later he had no idea who I was. I told him that he would probably sell more cars if he would pay attention to who the person is that is standing in front of him with their check book open. What an idot. It would have been our fourth Nissan, now I doubt I'll ever buy from them again.
Hey Nissan! You lost a long term cusomer last year.
Yeah, that did come across a bit weird, didn't it?
We looked at everything from Murano, to the Mazda CX's, Honda's, Malibu, Subaru, Saturn Vue, RAV, etc. I really spent a lot of time on it. I just couldn't find the right combination of price/features/style that fit.
We were a day away from the Murano and the salesman just blew us off. Never called back, and when I called him three days later he had no idea who I was. I told him that he would probably sell more cars if he would pay attention to who the person is that is standing in front of him with their check book open. What an idot. It would have been our fourth Nissan, now I doubt I'll ever buy from them again.
Hey Nissan! You lost a long term cusomer last year.
You're never buying a Nissan because of a bad salesman? That's a bit idiotic... Your loss, really...
I have rented a Prius several times hoping that I wold grow to like them. I really wanted to like the Prius it seems really neat (I do not mind it being ugly, some ugly cars are cool like the VW thing). I just cannot make myself like the Prius though. I find it very uncomfortable for any driving of over half an hour. The handling is terrible. These things are heavy! The control systems are ridiculous. Half the time I cannot get it to go into reverse. It just goes into neutral and will not change. I have to turn the power off and back on to get it to go into reverse. (One time I called a dealer and they said to open and close all of the doors - that worked, but not something that I want to do every time I want to back up). It is difficult to get through the radio or climate control programs without looking away from the road for too long. It does get good mileage (41, 43 and 44 average for the times that I rented one), but that is not spectacular mileage. It has pretty decent trunk space. I would prefer to trade that trunk space for more driver space. Some of the features like the rea view camera for backing up are silly. If you are backing up, you need to be turned around looking behind you, not looking at a video screen on your dash. This is going to cause accidents/deaths.
One other odd thing. I read in the manual that you cannot give someone a jump start with a Prius. You can jump start them, but you cannot jump start another car. So if these become the most common car, people who get a dead battery will end up stranded.
I wonder how well these batteries hold up when the temperatures are below zero. I know that the battery life drops in cold weather, but not by how much.
I thin that I will wait for a better design on the car and lithium batteries before I consider a hybrid or electric car.
It is amazing how far the technology has advanced. My brother has a 1975 Vanguard Metrocar (electric) and the comparison to the new hybrids is amazing. The metrocar was basically a toy not much more than an enclosed golf cart. The top sepeed was abotu 35 and the range is really bad. They certianly have come a long way in just over 30 years.
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