Public Opinion Poll

[ladysprite]

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?

Comments

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

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.