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talk me out of getting a hybrid

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not sure i'd want to buy a 6-7 year old hybrid, given the batteries probably are starting to lose charge.

$10k seems like a lot honestly for a 6-7 year old car, given a new civic hybrid is maybe $23k and a new insight is like $20k. $10k for a 6-7 year old used car that costs $23k new, doesnt seem like such a good deal , like you could be paying a hybrid used car premium compared to normal used cars.
 
DeathBUA said:
I own a hybrid. A Fusion Hybrid to be exact. I paid 28,500 after TTL, I just got the $3400 tax credit on my taxes. I drive/expect to drive 15-20K miles a year. A similarly equipped non-hybrid Fusion would have run me $2000 less. I made that back in the tax credit and then some. I drive anywhere from 650-800miles/tank, my old car I could maybe get 350miles/tank if it was ALL highway, like no city whatsoever. For all of the above, the hybrid made sense to me.

You should do the math for saving gas, figure out if you want to change your driving style or not(aka less lead foot), and also consider how many miles per year and what type of miles those will be before considering a hybrid.
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this might be one of the few instances where getting a hybrid makes some sense. there are no more tax credits for honda or toyota so its just a rip off there if you buy new. at least with ford they have not sold 60k hybrid cars yet. hyundai will have a sonata hybrids soon as well, so there will be some credit for them too (though it is getting smaller each year).

though i have to point out, an i-4 fusion still costs a lot less than a hybrid one, and gets similar fwy milage. if you drive a lot of fwy it still isnt that much of a savings (say fusion i-4 vs hybrid, given theres way more incentives and finance offers usually on non hybrids too)
 
Arkaign said:
I think Hybrids make a great deal of sense to a driver who does the vast majority of his driving in traffic, and drives 20k+ miles annually. If you get a decent amount of open-highway time, it begins to make a lot less sense.

To CTS up there ^^ I really like how the Fiesta is shaping up (the US is finally getting it again this coming year!), but the thing is a subcompact, not exactly comparable to the midsizeish Prius. The Prius is pretty roomy inside, and seems a shade larger than my 'compact' Focus.
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20k annually still won't net you the difference in a decent amount of time. The guy above said 60k/yr and how many people drive that much in 3 or 4 years???
 
zerocool84 said:
20k annually still won't net you the difference in a decent amount of time. The guy above said 60k/yr and how many people drive that much in 3 or 4 years???
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My car is going on 4 years old and I just rolled over 36K miles. '07 model bought it in September of '06.
 
would jeremy clarkson drive a hybrid?

no ... unless it's the hammerhead eagle i-thrust. that is the only hybrid that is permitted.

/thread
 
JDub02 said:
would jeremy clarkson drive a hybrid?

no ... unless it's the hammerhead eagle i-thrust. that is the only hybrid that is permitted.

/thread
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There are some Hybrids that are pretty awesome. Lexus LSh and GSh are about the power rather than the fuel economy.
 
The math is pretty easy to do, why don't you just figure it out if it's economical? It will totally just depend on how much you drive.

I bought my Insight because I was driving 7,000 miles a week. It saved me enormous amounts of money in gas, about 500$/mo over the Ford Focus I was driving previous.

I'm not doing that anymore, but it's still nice to fill up once every 2 months... My car is paid off now, so the gas savings is money in my pocket. I plan on keeping it forever - or at least until they come out with another car that gets well over 70MPG without breaking a sweat.

And guys - pet peeve - stating your miles per tank means nothing unless we know the size of your tank.

I've gotten over 800 miles to the tank in the Insight, but that means nothing unless I tell you that it has a 10.6 gallon tank.
 
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Eli said:
The math is pretty easy to do, why don't you just figure it out if it's economical? It will totally just depend on how much you drive.

I bought my Insight because I was driving 7,000 miles a week. It saved me enormous amounts of money in gas, about 500$/mo over the Ford Focus I was driving previous.

I'm not doing that anymore, but it's still nice to fill up once every 2 months... My car is paid off now, so the gas savings is money in my pocket. I plan on keeping it forever - or at least until they come out with another car that gets well over 70MPG without breaking a sweat.
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O_O
 
Eli said:
The math is pretty easy to do, why don't you just figure it out if it's economical? It will totally just depend on how much you drive.

I bought my Insight because I was driving 7,000 miles a week. It saved me enormous amounts of money in gas, about 500$/mo over the Ford Focus I was driving previous.

I'm not doing that anymore, but it's still nice to fill up once every 2 months... My car is paid off now, so the gas savings is money in my pocket. I plan on keeping it forever - or at least until they come out with another car that gets well over 70MPG without breaking a sweat.

And guys - pet peeve - stating your miles per tank means nothing unless we know the size of your tank.

I've gotten over 800 miles to the tank in the Insight, but that means nothing unless I tell you that it has a 10.6 gallon tank.
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WTF? Were you doing Cross-country road trips continuously?
 
I was a courier driver.. lol.. Was on the road 12-16 hours a day. It was insanity. Good money though. Thinking about it, I suppose the 7,000 figure is a little inflated, was less on average, but wasn't unheard of. I drove well over 200,000 miles in the year I was doing that..
 
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go diesel. my car is brand new and getting 45-55 mpg at around 45mph. numbers will only go up as the engine is broken in. not to mention the vw tdi engine is fun as hell to drive.
 
archetypaul said:
go diesel. my car is brand new and getting 45-55 mpg at around 45mph. numbers will only go up as the engine is broken in. not to mention the vw tdi engine is fun as hell to drive.
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People tend to overstate the "after breakin" affect.. If your car has more than a few hundred miles on it, the rings have seated. I wouldn't expect much more than the maximum you've already gotten.
 
Eli said:
People tend to overstate the "after breakin" affect.. If your car has more than a few hundred miles on it, the rings have seated. I wouldn't expect much more than the maximum you've already gotten.
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Its a bit different with the TDI, everyone on TDIclub says that you get the best mileage after about 5k or so miles.
 
PhoKingGuy said:
Its a bit different with the TDI, everyone on TDIclub says that you get the best mileage after about 5k or so miles.
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Ahh. Interesting. Must be a diesel thing. I was assuming that the rings in a diesel would seat even faster, due to the higher compression ratio and therefor more powerful ring camming, but maybe that isn't the case.
 
Eli said:
Ahh. Interesting. Must be a diesel thing. I was assuming that the rings in a diesel would seat even faster, due to the higher compression ratio and therefor more powerful ring camming, but maybe that isn't the case.
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Theres a pretty involved process to "properly" break in the engine. Ive tried to follow it to some extent but there's a long list of things you're supposed to do. I think a lot of it is exaggerated but everyone on there considers an engine with 180k miles on it brand new so I guess theres some truth to the matter
 
Arkaign said:
I think Hybrids make a great deal of sense to a driver who does the vast majority of his driving in traffic, and drives 20k+ miles annually.
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If you drive 20k miles/yr in mostly traffic (i.e. city)...you probably don't need a car, you need a hi-power and a tall building
 
PhoKingGuy said:
Theres a pretty involved process to "properly" break in the engine. Ive tried to follow it to some extent but there's a long list of things you're supposed to do. I think a lot of it is exaggerated but everyone on there considers an engine with 180k miles on it brand new so I guess theres some truth to the matter
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A properly engineered and cared for engine could be nearly brand new at 180k miles.

Optimally, ie: if the specific engine in question was designed and machined properly, and your oil is performing properly.. wear should be essentially non-existant. Of course, this rarely happens in the real world, though it's not terribly uncommon to tear apart a well engineered high mileage engine and still find crosshatch on the cylinder walls.

Proper engine break-in takes a handful of controlled, under load runs. I would be interested to see the data associated with this "5k" stuff.

The most important part of engine break-in is seating the rings. Break-in of everything else happens eventually regardless of engine load and speed.
 
thanks for the help all, I ended up getting a 2008 yaris liftback- toyota certified for under KBB and they took my 97 civic as a trade-in for as much as carmax was willing to give me. My first tank of 217 miles gave me 30.97mpg- all city driving.
 
funkymatt said:
thanks for the help all, I ended up getting a 2008 yaris liftback- toyota certified for under KBB and they took my 97 civic as a trade-in for as much as carmax was willing to give me. My first tank of 217 miles gave me 30.97mpg- all city driving.
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What math did you use to decide on the Yaris, just out of curiosity?
 
KBB is 12,075 for CPO.

http://www.kbb.com/kbb/UsedCars/Pri...3|true|2146541|true|2146543|true|2146545|true

They wanted 11,8something, got them down to 11k and then they also took my trade in so cost was around 10,300 Plus tax title and license I think it was around 11500 financed. This includes a 7 year warranty ($0 deductible) with 2 years free oil changes at the dealership. all in all, decent deal IMO.

My regular mechanic will absolutely not touch hybrids due to the high voltages involved so that was the real deal killer for me.

I'm getting 30.97 mpg without any special driving techniques, which will cost me approximately $150 a year more in gas over the hybrid that I calculated at 40mpg- gas at $3/gal. Don't think I'd ever get my money's worth in that situation. Not to mention all the other special maintenance costs involved.
 
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