ladysprite | Public Opinion Poll

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Public Opinion Poll

For a little while now my sweetie and I have been bouncing around the idea of getting a second car. It's really a necessity at this point; with me working at various random places around the state it's extremely difficult to drive him to and from work every day, and public transportation for him is an expensive hassle.

We've been kind of assuming we'd get a used car, just to save money, but I'm realizing that that's actually somewhat of a hassle. Neither of us is much of a car guru, and in spite of the help of extremely knowledgeable friends, I've had enough bad experiences that I'd never quite completely trust anything particularly old. So this put us looking for a fairly high-end, gently used car with no known vehicle-health issues.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it would probably be more efficient, overall, to get a second new car. The car I currently drive is, in fact, a fairly high-end, gently used car with no known health issues. If we bought another used car, odds are we'd need to replace one car or the other within a few years. On the other hand, if we get a new car now, the car I currently use can become my sweetie's, and there would hopefully be no need to buy any more vehicles for at least a while. Part of me feels like I'm being overly extravagant and spendthrifty, but another part realizes that, if we can afford the payments, this may be the most reasonable way to go.

The other reason the new-car concept has so much appeal is that I'm thinking of buying a gas-electric hybrid. With all of the driving I do, and with the ludicrous gas prices, it seems a lot more efficient to have a car that gets much better mileage. However, I also know that my knowledge of cars is not merely woefully lacking, but functionally utterly absent, and I don't want to hop into something like this without a lot more information.

So - does anyone out there reading this own a hybrid car, or know someone who does, or at least have a strong opinion about them one way or the other? And if so, would you be willing to share any info or opinions with me?

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i do not own a hybrid car. i did testdrive a few when i was buying my new one. the main problem i saw was that they turn off at stoplights, to save energy. this is great, except it turns off your AC, your music, and your lights...
the benefit is of course the gas-saving. also a tax break which i think you cna still get. however, they are not cheap.

honestly, if you asked my oppinion, which iwill give you regardless, as you know, i'd get a Hyundai if i were you (and it was my first car, which i loved). They are econo cars, they are exceptional at having great gas-milage, and they are under 10K. you can not find a cheaper car that doesn't suck... (i had a hyundai accent '99. it ran liek a wonder, and i only don't have it because SOMEONE drove it intoa pickup...)

You're tiny enough that a hybrid would probably work for you. Me, I'd need one for each foot.

Apart from that, I have little to offer; I have no interest in the things, so I haven't been keeping up with their development since the highly deficient original models hit the open market a few years ago.

curiousmay9 owns a hybrid and is very taken with it. I've ridden in it with her (5'10", 210 lbs) and I did not find it cramped. Their highway acceleration for passing is astonishingly good.

You may wish to contact her directly for a personal review.

Everything I've read says that the hybrid cars are a luxury item - the payback time is impossible. It is not an economic choice, it is a social statement.

A very good used car is just as reliable (for a commuter car) as a new one, and far more economical as well. If it is just one or two years old, you can even get a "used car loan" (at banks such as my credit union, DCU (http://www.dcu.org) or others), and sometimes even a warrantee.

Of course, I am not talking about what you want here, or the fun and satisfaction of owning a car, or any real intangibles. Just being cheap.

I test-drove a hybrid before we bought our current car a few years ago and decided to stick with the standard system for a few reasons, some of which will apply to you and at least one won't:

Hybrids cost a lot more than comparable models with a standard combustion engine, something like $8,000 more. You can buy more than 3,000 gallons of gas with $8,000.
The car we eventually ended up with (a 2003 Corolla) had decent mileage to begin with (about 33 mpg highway). (So, assuming we really average 29-30 mpg, the cost differential would pay for about 90,000 miles' worth of gas.)
When I turned on the a/c on a warm but not hot Florida day, the mileage on the hybrid I drove (a Prius) plummeted from 45 mpg to 31 mpg. In other words, a hybrid presented no real advantage for much of the year here. (This is the reason that wouldn't apply to your situation. But the equivalent may apply if a heater also makes the hybrid less efficient, which it inevitably would.)

Incidentally, we're very happy with our two-year-old Corolla. The 2003 model had much better crash-test results than the prior Corolla, and I hope that's kept up. It was our first brand-new car purchase.

I have a Ford

escapehybrid, and I have to say I am a VERY happy owner...

I bought it at the end of Febuary. It cost about $4000 more than the regular Ford Escape. ($28,000 total)
It's getting about 25 MPG and has a 15 Gal tank. It is rated at 28MPG city. It's costing me about $26-$30 every two weeks. For my average commute from Arlington to MIT. Plus I drive around campus usually once a day.
Compared to my last car which was costing me about $25-$28 / week (Ford Explorer, getting between 12-15 MPG) At this rate It should pay for itself over the corse of the car's life. Though as I have been taking a couple of longer trips the milage is getting better. (Both as I get used to driving it and it's breaking in.)

Now I choose the Escape because I wanted an SUV. I haul enough junk around on a near weekly basis that I felt I needed the extra room. Plus I'm a big guy (6' 250lbs) and I just don't feel as comfortable driving smaller cars.
I choose a hybrid even though they are mor expensive, because I wanted to "vote with my dollars", as well as keep the operational costs down.

I find that it drives really well, there are certain things to keep in mind when driving Hybrids. It does take a little getting used to the fact that the gas engine shuts off after about 5 minutes of "warm up / battery charge" time. It will run on electric under about 30 MPH, or faster if you are coasting downhill lightly on the brakes. The AC compressor and defrost both NEED the gas engine to function. The AC will continue to function in an "energy saver" mood without the gas, but in this heat that lasts about 2-3 minutes before you are ready for more cold... (you can manually switch the gas engine on at that point if you want.) I also notice the 1/2 second hessetation when calling for more power than the electric engine can provide. Usually at points when I'm going uphill, entering a highway, or jumping off a stop light...

I've heard the [Unknown site tag] gets in the 50MPG range...

It's really a question of your financial situation. If you can afford a new car, then it might make sense b/c as you say it'll last longer. If that'll be too much of a stretch for you, and your hesitation about buying used is not knowing if it's healthy, I can recommend a good mechanic to check it out.

Not owning a car, but having a Zipcar membership, means that I've had the chance to drive the Prius and Civic Hybrid as well as several more traditional cars. My officemate has a Civic Hybrid, which he likes very much.

You lose a lot of trunk space to the batteries in any hybrid car.

"Last time I saw the numbers run hybrid cars did not save enough $$ in gas to offset the added cost. You can purchase new non-hybrid cars that get very impressive gas mileage for much less money.
An example, this site lists the fuel economy of various cars. The Honda Civic Hybrid (manual trans) gets 45mpg city/51mpg highway, ranked three cars below it on the scale is the regular civic (manual trans) at 36mpg city/44mpg highway. If you do the math, comparing the city mileage (which is where hybrids shine and what the car would largely do in your hands I'm guessing) at 15,000miles per year (national average) and $2.35/gallon (what I saw in Cambridge earlier today) the total fuel savings per year comes out at under $200 ($783 for the hybrid vs $979 for the regular). According to Edmunds.com the base price for a hybrid Civic 4-dr (maunal) is $19,900, while the base price for the regular Civic 4-dr (manual) is $13,260 to $17,510 depending on trim level. That means even if you went for the high-end EX trim level it would take about twelve years for the fuel savings to pay for the price difference.

I would strongly suggest against buying a brand new car. A brand new car loses at *least* $1000 in value the minute you drive it off the dealer's lot, and then depreciates very rapidly for the first couple years after that.
I would agree with your earlier plan to look at buying a couple-year-old used car. You will get the best price buying privately. However a lot of new car dealers now offer loans and warrentees on their used cars (so many ppl buying new cars they are trying to unload the large numbers of trade-ins & off-lease cars).
I know time is tight with you both, but you may want to take an afternoon or saturday off and poke around the local car dealerships. Browse the used car section and see what is out there. Talk to a salesperson and see what they want for stuff. I'd make it very clear that you're looking for a 2nd around town car to supplement your regular car. This will depend on your impression of the salesperson, but you might want to ask them flat out what is popular right now (so you know what cars are going to therefore fetch a higher premium), and possibly even ask if they have anything on the lot they've been having trouble moving (in a 'you do me a favor in the price and I'll do you a favor by getting it out of your inventory' sort of way).
One big advantage of the used car lot at new car dealers is that they have a (overall) higher quality of cars. When they get trade-ins of off-lease cars, they send to auction the older ones, or higher mileage, or damaged, or problem-filled, etc. They don't want to deal with those, they only want cars that are likely to have a fast turnaround. The trade-off is that the higher quality of car will fetch a slightly higher price."

P.S. sorry for the length, was feeling verbose.

You know what I'd love to have?

A 5 year old diesel. 5 years old, so it's off warranty, and cheap enough that I feel like I can gamble. Then I'd get the conversion kit to let it run on vegetable oil.

It doesn't mean you put vegetable oil in the main tank; you need regular diesel in the main tank, because until the engine is hot enough, vegetable oil won't work. But, you have a secondary tank, and a button to start using it, once the engine heats up.

Restaurants have to pay to have cooking oil hauled away. They'll give you oil for free. You run it through a large coffee filter, and pour it into your secondary tank, and voila, you have a frenchfrymobile!

However, the conversion voids the warranty, and unless you have a good mechanic, things could go wrong, and if you're like me, you might keep forgetting to check with the restaurants until they've already thrown their oil away, etc.. Still, right now, it's my dream car, and diesel is more efficient than gas, so it has good mileage, used McD grease or diesel.

So, none of this means anything to you, but it still gives me a chance to talk about one of my ittybitty dreams.

I've ridden around in an older Prius and it was a nice car, but I haven't actually driven one myself, and I don't know how much better (for me) one would be. The car I was riding in belonged to our buyer's broker, and she drove pretty much constantly - but not away from the city - so for her it was a wise choice.

The main issue that I've heard with hybrids is that because they are -so- complicated under the hood, you pretty much have to take them back to the dealership to get service. If you're in the middle of, say, New Jersey on your way to a Con, and the car breaks down, you have a problem. This is the main reason my mother (who lives in Washington state and drives to Utah occasionally) is not getting a hybrid. I don't know how much of an issue this would be for the pair of you.

I have a Honda Civic LX stickshift and I'm regularly getting 40 mpg, so while the savings in emissions with a hybrid would be nice, I'm not sure it would offset the additional cost. I got mine at the end of model year (around this time, two years ago) and I followed the Foolish Guide to Buying a Car and ended up paying for it what I had paid for my four-years-old used Subaru wagon three years earlier, and I've been very happy with it ever since. (Well, aside from it not being a hatchback.)

Good luck!

Manuals generally get much better mileage than automatics, on the order of 25% better, and they usually cost less than automatics, roughly $800-$1200 less depending on the car. Add a high performance air filter like a K&N Filtercharger (cost about $50 including the cleaning kit) and you can increase the mileage by another 5-10% (and reduce waste because they are reusable).

Hybrids are city commuter vehicles. Much of their efficiency comes from regenerative braking dumping charge back into the batteries. Their actual performance drops if most of your driving is highway driving. YMMV -- literally :).

Personally, I do not see depreciation as a reason to go used instead of new. A used car will depreciate just as much as a new one. Sure, you'll save a few thousand dollars on the purchase price. For that savings you will have critical questions that probably cannot be answered: did the previous owner keep up with the maintenance schedule? Did he use premium parts and consumables or budget parts and consumables? What were his driving habits? Hard or gentle acceleration and stops? Highway or city driving? What kind of gas did he put in the tank, and did he use additives like Gumout or Marvel's Mystery Oil? How often? All of these can affect the life of a vehicle and do not show up on the dealer sticker. Buying new means you know the car's history. Whether or not that is worth the extra cost of buying new is a choice you have to make for yourself. Me? I won't buy a used car just to save a few bucks -- I'll probably buy a less expensive car instead.

Just my two cents for what they're worth.

public transportation for him is an expensive hassle.

More expensive than upkeep and payments on another car (used or new)? And car ownership is not without its hassles, though they do tend to be a lot chunkier than with public transit. Hassle may well be a good reason to not use public transit, but it seems unlikely that "expensive" really is, when examined in context.

Whether a prius or other hybrid is economical depends on a lot of assumptions, such as how long you intend to keep it, what the price of gas is going to do, what the price of thin film solar panels is going to do, etc.

Say you like to keep a car for 10 years, as I do. If you assume a straight line on gas prices (93.6% increase in the last ten years) the price at the end of that time will be $4.51 per gallon, or an average price of $3.42 per gallon over the whole life. Using just this past year's increase (around 20%) gives gas at $14.50 per gallon at the end of ten years.

If anyone tells you they know what gas prices are going to do, ask them how they are doing on gas futures. All numbers come from DOE, and I just used July 18ish 2005, 2004, and 1995.

Hey there,

oakleaf_mirror pointed me over here. We've met a few times. I have a 6 month old '05 Prius and I am quite happy with it overall. That said I essentially agree with

goldsquare's economic argument. The payback time is too long at current gas prices to justify the price premium for the hybrids, purely in cost of ownership terms. I knew that when I decided to buy it.

I still chose to buy it because right now I'm in the fortunate position that I could afford the price premium to make a statement, about my own view on wh. The price premium was not so high that I feel I would be getting burned to bad by it and Toyota put their reputation on the line here. I expect the car will be nearly as reliable as their standard models, but we'll see. The Japanese companies are much more risk adverse, in terms of product reliability, then American companies. In part I'm relying on them to keep faith with their reputation here.

Of the available hybrids on the market I find Toyota's the better choice. Honda's "soft" hybrid does not increase the fuel economy nearly as much as Toyota's 2nd gen hybrid system, making the payback time even longer. The newer Prius's, '04 and '05 models, are also a bit bigger then a Civic or a Corolla but a bit smaller then an Accord or Camry. If cost of ownership is very important it difficult to make an apples to apples comparison with an equivalent non-hybrid.

Overall though, if cost is a major factor, you really are better off financially picking up a slightly used standard car.

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