[susieq]

Hi All,
I am so excited about our new car....mainly because it's been since 1994 that we have purchased a brand new vehicle with that "new car" smell....

We usually buy something that is around 2 years old. Broke in good but not abused. Mike has been driving that 94 Ford pickup for 13 years and it is a gas hog. With the way gas prices are going he decided he needed to look for a smaller truck. We bought a gorgeous little Dodge Dakota 2003 with all the bells and whistles from a private party about a month ago. Mike had been driving that but since his main hobby has been buying and selling large wood working tools (now that he is retired from the Fire Dept) the little truck just didn't work out. He bought out a shop full of tools and had to make 3 trips to get it all home. No gas savings there........

We had not had anyluck trying to sell the old Ford mainly because he didn't really want to part with it. He has always taken good care of it and it is a great truck except for the gas guzzling part.

We had also been discussing getting a hybrid car for several years but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Weds while I was at work, he went to our loca Toyota dealer and test drove a Prius. I have Thursdays off so we drove the Dakota back there and he had me test drive the Prius. Long story short, we drove the Prius home and left the Dakota there.

I am really impressed with this little car. We bought the basic model, no bells or whistles other than standard equipment...which is pretty nice. The inside of the car is roomy, head wise and leg wise. Power windows, Power locks, Air conditioning, side airbags, a back up camera comes on to show you on a little screen in the dash, what is behind you while you back the car.... They are hatch back and the back seats fold down so there is plenty of hauling room. There is no ignition key. You get in, buckle up, put your foot on the brake pedal and press the power button.
Put it in reverse and it beeps while you back up, also the little screen comes up on the dash showing you what is behind you. (it is real freaky to roll backwards with no noise or motor vibration..silent, smooth)

The door remotes do not have to leave your pocket or purse. You do not have to push a button on it. You just walk up to the door you wish to enter and it unlocks automatically. And best of all, once you reach your cruising speed, you get astronomical (sp?) gas milage! It has a digital readout that tells you your gas milage constantly and yesterday, while motoring up the highway at 60 mph, I was getting between 55 & 65 mpg.......outrageous. It has a 10 or 12 gal tank...don't remember which. And this is no tinny little car. It is a solid, safe feeling ride.

The main downside for me is the blind spot. Because it is a hatch and the windows are not real large in the rear, you need to learn to depend on your side mirrors as well as the main rear view mirror. Even looking over ones shoulder before changing lanes is not good enough because of the blind spot. But I have adapted and it didn't take that long. (one close call will do it.... :0)

Base price is $24K which is competetively priced with other similar sized cars.
If you want the extreme anti theft features, the on board navigation system, the "home-link" feature with built in garage door openers/gated community opener, power seats, etc....the price goes up to around 28K or more. Also they push the extended warranty pretty hard ($1,200.00) when you go in to sign papers and perhaps with these batteries being so expensive, it might have been a good idea, but we never buy extended warranties......ever!

The dealership gave us a good trade in value on our little Dodge so it didn't hurt too bad. We have had wonderful luck with Toyotas. Our regular vehicle is a 99 Toyota Avalon and our second Avalon at that. We gave the first one, a 96, to our youngest daughter when we got the 99. She is still driving it. But Mike and I have decided that if we love the Prius this much a year from now, we will get rid of the Avalon and just keep the Prius and the old Ford.
susieq

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

We will probably look at the Prius next car too,....have had 14 Toyotas over the years, outstanding cars...only reason we have a saturn vue now is so we can pull it behind the RV.....which by the way, we have not done lol

[JIM QUILICI]

Susieq,
sounds like you have a great car...... but i would think about.............. extended warranties.........We bought a 2000 cad they come with a 50,000 mile warranties we added another 25,000 and two year for $1200 that car was the biggest piece of junk that their is. in the 6years that i owned it there was $18,000 dollars of warranty work done on it (thank goodness not out of our pocket.) but after the warranties ran out i put 4,000 out of my pocket. we now drive a buick . 9,000 miles and no problems.
Jim

[jillsy]

Thanks for posting this Q. Due to a very long commute on the PA Turnpike (unfortunately, my husband only works 40 minutes away, but with traffic, it takes him 1.5-2 hours!) Ted's been considering a Prius to take the sting out of our gas bill. I'll pass this information on to him. Thanks again for sharing.

Jillsy

[Ron Davidson]

Congrats on your new car Susieq. For some reason they won't let me have one.

[susieq]

Ron Davidson wrote:
"Congrats on your new car Susieq. For some reason they won't let me have one."

Gee Ron, I can't imagine why. :0 lol

Jim, my folks had a caddy that was an absolute piece of junk.... That name does not mean what it used to, sadly.

I have put about 50 miles on the car in the last 3 days. The gas guage hasn't moved. I hope we love the car this much 6 months from now. My brother has an old Geo Metro that he is so proud of....the thing is ancient. It has no airconditioning, is beat up and uncomfortable to ride in but it gets 53 miles per gallon with it. I just think he likes the challange of keeping it running. Poo on that. Give me comfort and economy.....
susieq

[wade clark]

They're great cars! Our last one was a Prius, now a Toyota Hylander Hybrid.
The blind spot: Get the little convex mirrors to put on your outside mirrors, you NEED them on the Prius unless they've really changed, and it sounds like they still have "blind spot problems". Take it seriously.
We traded ours because we needed a 4x4 and also we were spending lots of time on long freeway trips, and trucks seemed not to see our small size...scary! Watch out for the other guy!
Great cars, though! We loved ours!
Wade

[Paul_Guraedy]

My wife is very interested in a hybrid and is currently considering the Prius and Hylander. The information sounds really good. I think the Hylander might be better for us as the road out to the highway requires high clearance and we only grocery shop once a month….this requires a lot of room on the way home.

My concern is that the primary advantage, for hybrids, seems to be in stop and go type driving. We do very little of this. When we go grocery shopping there is only one stop (as we enter Highway 412). The next stop is 25 miles away at Walmart (not even a traffic light intervening). Sometimes we stop for a meal; but, often it is the return trip and no stops.

Even when we go to the Doctor there is an 80 mile run to the City (one stop). While there we do our major shopping and there is a lot of stop and go; but, this only happens about 4-5 times a year. Again the return trip is 80 miles without a stop.

The Ford dealer tells me that is why I am averaging 20 mpg on a one-ton diesel truck. That thing does not like stop and go.

Is there a gauge that shows the battery levels and are you running on gas or battery when on the highway. How/when does it charge?

[wade clark]

Paul,
It charges as it runs, never needs "plugged in", both off the engine when it needs it and off the lost energy of braking. There is a setting on the dash monitor that you can see when it's running on electric or gas. Also, if you need to punch it and accelerate fast both electric and gas run at the same time, kind of like "Turbo". It's really set up to where you never need to think about which it's running on. It's great though to be going along with no engine noise, when it's on electric, less noticable on the Hylander.
We took our Prius from Florida to Oregon and coming off the Rockies we used no gas! Doing 75!
I feel like the advantage of the current hybrids is more for the planet than for personal economy. There are other vehicles that are nearly as fuel efficient as the Prius, more so for the Hybrid, and the additional cost will probably never off-set the fuel savings, but they're definately better for the planet.
I'm kind of excited at what Honda has coming up, a Natural Gas car. You fill it at a connection in your garage (if you have natural gas), it gets 40+ mpg and...here's the great part...natural gas is about $1.00 per gallon!!!!! So that's like another car getting 100 to 120 mpg on gas!
If we can go to Mars surely we can eliminate using fossil fuels! And corn fuel costs more to make than it's selling for, so it's not really an answer either.
Wade

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Originally Posted by Ron Davidson

Congrats on your new car Susieq. For some reason they won't let me have one.

Its because you drive too fast Ron