Not Buying a Prius

[Mark Vlahos]

Andy,

There are lots of reasons to choose one particular car over another, cost is one reason, admittedly a very important one.

When my wife and I purchased our Prius in the summer of '04 we did consider the purchase price, interest on a loan, fuel, battery and engine maintenance / replacement costs. We have a history of owning cars for between 10 and 15 years so we do factor that long span of time and an expectation of 250,000 to 300,000 miles. We also consider many of the other somewhat less tangible factors like comfort, tail pipe emissions, cargo capacity, styling... the list can be endless.

For us the Prius was the best choice at the time. With the rear seats folded down I have been able to fit two complete sets of cave divers gear in the back. Doubles, O2 bottle, dry suits, regs, the works. The back of the car is full and it rides low on the suspension but it can fit.

We considered the Honda Element but were disappointed with its fuel economy and since we already own a Honda CRV we decided that the advantage went to the Prius. If Honda was selling a Hybrid Element with better fuel economy and lower tail pipe emissions perhaps the choice would have gone the other way, but alas that vehicle did not exist so the point is moot.

If price is the only factor that is ever used then lots of high end luxury cars would sit idle on new car lots, sometimes other factors out weigh price alone.

Good luck in your quest, but I am quite happy with our Prius.

Mark Vlahos

 

[rje634]

I have also heard, now mind you this is second hand, that the Prius goes through tires faster that a "normal" car because of the extra battery weight in the back, and the tires are not as wide to increase milage.
How "green" are used tires? Vulcanized rubber doesn't degrade very quickly....

 

[Ber Rabbit]

I bought a Chevy HHR in November. I'm getting 28.8 mpg consistently (sometimes more) and I have the "big" engine. Most of my regular driving is highway (so I don't know about city mileage) and most of it is ummm well lets just say the HHR likes to cruise. I drove it to Florida from Ohio completely loaded with dive gear for two and even doing 80mph through the mountains I was still getting just under to a bit over 28 mpg. According to the car computer my average speed for the round trip was 60mph and my average gas mileage was 28.3mpg.

The back seat lays down completely flat and the resulting cargo area is long enough for me to sleep in, I'm 5'7". The front passenger seat also lays down completely flat when I need extra room to haul long objects.

I love my HHR and would recommend that anyone looking for a scuba mobile at least take a look at one.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Mark Vlahos]

I have also heard, now mind you this is second hand, that the Prius goes through tires faster that a "normal" car because of the extra battery weight in the back, and the tires are not as wide to increase milage.
How "green" are used tires? Vulcanized rubber doesn't degrade very quickly....

I replaced the stock tires at 35,000 miles, but I have only myself to blame. The tires were worn out due to an alignment problem that I failed to correct in a timely manner. Plenty of tread life on the remaining rubber, just worn where the misalignment was made evident.

The '04 and later Prius use normal tires and the expectation is that while the car is slightly heavier due to the batteries the tire life should not suffer since the car is still well within the weight paramaters that standard tires are designed for.

The special tires you are probably thinking of were used on the '03 and earlier Prius. Since I do not own one of those models I am not able to contribute, I just know that when I was looking for tires one salesman noted the difference.

Mark Vlahos

 

[Jim Baldwin]

a while back, i was thinking of getting a Toyota Prius, the hybrid car with a real world average MPG of 45-50 (not too shabby)

i discussed this with Scubafool, and he basically said Prius weren't economic in the long run, so i crunched some numbers... well.... basically, gas would have to get to about $8.00 per gallon before the Prius becomes economic.

here's my math:

i've been looking around at the new crop of small economy cars (mostly the Honda Fit, Scion xA, and the Pontiac Vibe). (see this thread: http://scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=154292)

let's take the Honda Fit. comes with a ton of standard stuff, gets an average of 28 mpg (real world) and sells for $17,075 to $18, 655.

the Prius, on the other hand, while it gets 50 mpg (real world), starts at $23,000 and goes as up to $26,500.

taking the higher figures, monthly payments on the Fit come to $444 on a 36-month loan. I don't want to get saddled with the 36-month loan on a Prius ($770) so have to go with a 48-month loan, or $559.

over the life of the loans, that comes to a monthly difference of $301.

using the Prius will cut my fuel comsumption roughly in half, so instead of spending $120 per month, i would spend $60 per month on gas with the Prius.

however, that is a savings of $60 per month, while i am paying $301 extra per month to buy the Prius, which means driving the Prius will cost me an extra $241 per month.

by my calculations, gas has to hit $8.47 a gallon before i break even.

Took my wife's old car a 1992 Olds Cutlass with 172,000 miles down to our house in Cozumel. At 30 mph, no oil usage and good air it was a good setup for the island.

Now for a new car. She drives 80 miles roundtrip to work every day. We went with a 2006 Volkswagen Jetta TDI six speed automatic with the Turbo Diesel. I picked the car at the Volkswagen dealership in Baton Rouge and topped it off. Drove it home 247 miles at 50-60 mph and got 43 miles per gallon.

In driving back and forth to work on the interstate at 60-70 she gets a solid 40 miles per gallon. It runs quite and with the turbo has plenty of pick up and feels like a six cylinder gas engine. It has the same room as a Nissan Altima and Honda Accord.

 

[freefall2]

I wonder if they are going to bring something like this Toyota Corolla to North America. While we were in Czech Republic in June a friend of a friend who runs Toyota there gave us this car to drive for free. We drove all over the southeast of the country for 3 days and when we topped it up to give it back we were amazed at how little diesel it had burned, close to 50mpg. It is a really comfortable car with tons of legroom in back plus a big cargo space under the hatch. It has guts too. There are terrific roads there, smooth and twisty with no traffic.

 

[jcm]

if you want a fuel efficent car get the new nissan versa. it is alot bigger interior then the fit and the yaris. it comes standerd with alot of safty features including side impact air bags. now i dont now how safe it is to sit right above the gas tank but you do in the honda fit. the versa start at 13900 and one fully equped with cvt transmission (shiftless) inteligant key ( no key need to start the car) and and all the other bells and whisles will run about 16500

 

[Mo2vation]

A lot of people who tout the "greenness" of hybrids like the Prius conveniently forget this aspect of it.

Most cars that start out in the Prius' price range (minus the "added dealer greed") after 9 years aren't worth much more than the $3k it costs to replace the batteries. So what's more likely to happen? Yup, lots of abandoned hybrids by the side of the road or in people's yards. How "green" is that?

Just curious what you're trying to say. Should a dealer work for free?

---
Ken

 

[hnladue]

MY dad bought a 05 prius. Fully loaded. He's saving $4000 a year buy buying that car. Between what he was paying in gas each month, and the insurance(prius is cheaper), the prius is $100 a month more in payment, he is still saving $4000 a yr. We are seeing 50 MPH out of it and bought the extended warrenty so the batteries won't be an issue. Depending on what you're driving (my dad had a tahoe-$100 wk in gas) the pruis can be a good choice! Also I've 'stolen' it on a few diving trips. Didn't even need to fold the seats down. The tanks fit nicely into the back, and all my gear. It was nice to take a 5 hr drive and only cost $18 in gas

 

[Tamas]

This it the diesel version right? My question is why does this vehicle get such POOR fuel mileage for a diesel. I had an 84 GMC Suburban diesel that gave me a consistent 21-22 mpg at 75mph. This was darn near 3 times the vehicle and motor plus it had torque like crazy. It was old manual motor technology and had 250,000 miles on it at the time. I would think with new electronic engine controls and a less worn engine in a lot smaller vehicle it should do a lot better than the mid 20's.
Now if they would just build reasonable size vehicles (no go carts) with adequate sized diesels and forget all the hybrid/electric/hydrogen BS we might just have something. Esp if we crank up the bio diesel production.

I can give you 2 very valid real world reason for it! Number 1 -- it's an automatic (and automatic only) put a real transmission behind it that doesn't waste 30% of the energy for internal functions and actually delivers and shifts gears like it supposed to and you'd have better mpg. In short, throw a 6-speed manual in there.
Number 2 -- dirty diesel, high sulphur content will kill the performance because they have to dummyfie the engine down and put in components that will live up to the average user's abuse to run on any diesel. VW had issues with their very first generation TDI's as well, most people would not be bothered to put in Gold Diesel (instead farm/truck grade) and thus were ruining the injectors, the dealers could not keep up with the repairs and got a bad rep for it.

So in short, a horrible automatic transmission instead of a manual and lower performance injectors due to bad fuel -- come 2009-2010 that should all change.

Your Burb was getting better mpg because it had a huge 6.5L engine with injectors that you could use for garden hoses not to mention the power to weight ratio was lot better, the Libby is a heavy little sucker for the detuned 2.8 that is in there.

Diesels as a whole are a lot better then any hybrid/electric car. They use 30-40% less fuel then their gasser counterpart and also emit a lot less pollution in parts/million -- BUT most people look at them and remember the failed attempts of the 60-70's, the oil burning monsters or the exhaust of the big rigs -- they can see it and think it's bad, while the average gassers exhaust is not visible but just a deadly. Not the mention that hybrids only make sense in a stop-n-go traffic to recharge, otherwise they are worse on mpg and electric cars -- well they need that electricity from somewhere, so how are you going to get it?