Hybrid owners, or knower abouters... Need your help!!!

[Leleluvsdis]

DH and I are in hopes for a new car for me in the next year or so, so we are starting to do some research. I want something that does 30mpg or better. I have a 99 honda civic, and love it, but DH doesn't have enough room in it. I have looked at hybrid cars, but then when talking to someone the other day, they said they aren't worth the extra money b/c the repair bill are much more expensive. For those of you how own them, or know anything about hybrids, what are your experiences?

 

[ceecee]

DH has had his Camry Hybrid for 3 years and loves it. It gets 40 mpg and is very roomy and a very smooth ride. So far (knock on wood) there have been no repairs.

 

[blondietink]

My friend has a hybrid and it is very small. It's ok for one person, but as soon as her DH gets into it, the gas mileage goes down and goes into overdrive the minute she goes up any incline. She wishes she never bought it, because most of her driving is highway miles, not city miles. Hybrid is better for city folks that drive mostly less than 40 miles per hour.

We own a 2009 Hyundai Sonata 4 cylinder and love it. Gets 34 MPG on the highway and is very roomy. And it was A LOT cheaper than any hybrid.

 

[Dacky619]

My dad has a Prius, and in general, yes, the repairs are more expensive.

I would recommend using a calculator like edmunds.com's true cost to own http://www.edmunds.com/tco.html . I drive roughly 30k miles a year just for work, so mpg was very important for me. I have an 08 Honda Fit that usually gets around 38-40 mpg.

 

[mnrose]

We have a Prius which is 3 years old. We've had NO repair bills whatsoever (just oil changes and routine maintenance, which is the same price charged for non-hybrid vehicles). It has not been my experience that it "costs more" and in any event, we are getting double the mileage of the car it replaced, so even if it did "cost more" the gas savings are quite substantial (with gas hovering in the $4 a gallon range).

Love it. Spacious vehicle, very comfortable for 4 adults, and with decent storage.


The edmunds site listed above is quite interesting. I just plugged in our car vs. a similarly equipped Honda Fit, and the "True Cost to Own" is about $3500 different ($32K for the Prius, $28,500 for the Fit), and considering that the Prius cost $7000 more initially (factored into the "True Cost to own") this is quite remarkable. And, since the annual operating cost for the Prius are much less, just a couple more years and the Prius ("True Cost to Own") will be less than the Fit.

 

[Darcy03231]

When I was car shopping a couple of years ago I looked into a hybrid. One of the reasons I decided not to buy was at the time the batteries were only warrantied for 4-5 years and the cost of a new battery was between $5,000-$7,000. Since I'm a drive it until the wheels are falling off kind of girl (I kept one car for 18 years), I decided against a hybrid. I ended up with a Dodge Caliber and have been very happy with it. I average about 32 mpg on the highway and my DH is 6'4" and he fits in it comfortably.

 

[mnrose]

When I was car shopping a couple of years ago I looked into a hybrid. One of the reasons I decided not to buy was at the time the batteries were only warrantied for 4-5 years and the cost of a new battery was between $5,000-$7,000. Since I'm a drive it until the wheels are falling off kind of girl (I kept one car for 18 years), I decided against a hybrid. I ended up with a Dodge Caliber and have been very happy with it. I average about 32 mpg on the highway and my DH is 6'4" and he fits in it comfortably.

The Prius is now under warranty for 7 years on the Hybrid battery. Might not make a difference to you, but it may for someone else.

Also, the Prius (first generation) has been out for over a decade, and there still are not widespread failures of the hybrid battery. It has proven to be very reliable and has not needed replacement for many people, even in vehicles 11-12 years old. We examined this issue carefully before buying our Prius.

 

[NemoMom07]

I just got a nissan altima hybrid. I LOVE IT!!!! I drive both city and highway. I average 36.2. That is up since I got it. You have to drive differently to get the most mogul with your hybrid. So it takes some time. I have been reading some on hypermiling to help more.

The altima has the same hybrid system has the toyota camry . Nissan bought the rights to use the hybrid system. It is very spacious. It is not the best mpg hybrid but I love it.

 

[seashoreCM]

(to be answered during your research, as opposed to right now)

1. If the battery is warranted for 7 years and it fails after 5, how much pro-rated cost do you have to pay?
2. How does use of the air conditioning and the heater affect miles per gallon?
3. Since the gas engine keeps shutting off and restarting, how long does the starting contactor last?

 

[GatorMama]

We've had our Prius for 5 years and love love love it. We are getting slightly less mileage now than when we got it (We used to get 45 mpg on nearly every tank... now it's more like 42-43). We've never had any maintainence issues at all. Just regular oilchanges/tire rotations that any car owner would need to pay for. The battery did die once, but we jumped it off without a problem (we did call the dealership before we tried that, just in case there were special considerations). Ditto to the poster that said there have been very few issues with the hybrid batteries. When we bought (during the time that there were long waiting lists to get a Prius, MONTHS long if you were picky about things like color and interior choices), we were told that they had been very concerned about the battery life so they made thousands of batteries to be available if the hybrid batteries failed and needed to be replaced, but since there were no issues, there were warehouses full of hybrid batteries. Yeah... I'm not sure if I completely believe it, but I do know we haven't had any problems.

 

[DawnM]

Is there a hybrid he would have enough room in that would be worth your while getting?

I think your DH may be right about the cost effectiveness.

We looked at a Honda Civic hybrid vs. Honda civic and the difference was over $5K. It would take us about 8 years to "break even" with the gas we use and even then, if costly repairs are needed, we would not break even anyway.

I would look for a good fuel efficient car without the hybrid added. We currently have two Saturns (SW2 and VUE) that get around 30mpg each. The VUE is a 4 cyl stick shift for anyone asking why our VUE gets such good mileage.

We would like our next car to get between 35-40 min. I dont think we will need a hybrid for that.

Don't get me wrong, I would love a Prius, I am just not sure it is cost effective in the long run.

Dawn

DH and I are in hopes for a new car for me in the next year or so, so we are starting to do some research. I want something that does 30mpg or better. I have a 99 honda civic, and love it, but DH doesn't have enough room in it. I have looked at hybrid cars, but then when talking to someone the other day, they said they aren't worth the extra money b/c the repair bill are much more expensive. For those of you how own them, or know anything about hybrids, what are your experiences?

 

[Stinkerbell1973]

I bought the Lexus CT200h back in March. It's their new hybrid, it's the "sister" car to the Prius. I LOVE IT. Relatively inexpensive for a Lexus, it's MSRP was the same as the Highlander I drove before I bought it.
It advertises 43 MPG city and 40 MPG highway. I average 46 MPG city and 43-44 MPG highway. I drive 65 miles a day round trip to my office.
It's a small car but you maximize gas mileage with a car that is smaller/weighs less.

 

[Stinkerbell1973]

To be clear - priced in the high 20's, low 30's.

 

[Golf4food]

Don't forget that hybrid does not necessarily mean "small car". The Ford Escape hybrid SUV is great and more roomy than the small car hybrids and still gets high mpg.

I wanted to get the hybird in principle, but the way we drive and amount we drive gas would have to cost us $7 per gallon before we'd break even on the initial cost vs a non-hybrid version. As is we can get around 26 mpg highway in our non-hybrid Escape, which is pretty good for an SUV (and it is a 2008 model, the newer ones are even better).

 

[cats mom]

We seriously considered getting a hybrid, but after running tons of calculations we just couldn't justify it. Of course that was taking our specific driving habits into account and looking at it from a strictly from a financial perspective. I have to admit that being able to access the car pool lane (allowed in our state at the time, it isn't now) was almost a tipping point for us, but not quite. And I couldn't get DH to put a value on environmental friendliness. No tree hugger badge for him.

 

[I Believe n Fairies]

My husband is a mechanic and we recently bought him a car with better fuel milage. We considered hybrids, but the cost benefit for fuel would not out weigh the overall cost of the vehicle for quite some time (as dawn M pointed out). And, in the long run, repair expenses are more as well.

We ended up buying him a 2010 Pontiac Vibe, which is the exact same design as the Toyota Matrix. We LOVE this car! Great space, it's a hatchback, and gets about 32-33 mpg. We actually drove this last month on our trip to Disney and loved it. Of course, Pontiac is no longer is business, but I would really consider looking at the Matrix. Great car and do not regret buying it at all.

 

[crisi]

I love my Prius, but I don't think its a "money saver" - by the time you pay the increased purchase costs (I have an extended warrenty for longer than I keep any care so I don't need to worry about repair bills - mine is a little older than a year and I've only needed to change the tires) you've spend a lot of the savings you'll have on gas. I get 55-60 MPG in the summer - about 45 in the Minnesota Winter.

The other thing you need to know about a hybrid is you have to drive a hybrid differently if you want to get the good gas milage out of it. Its a Zen sort of driving not everyone enjoys. If you aren't going to change your driving style to make use of the batteries, don't bother with a hybrid.

If I were looking to save money on gas over the long haul, I'd consider a Jetta diesel. My last car was a Jetta (diesels weren't being imported when I bought mine). Good car, good gas milage, really reasonable purchase price. I don't know if that is the size/shape of car you are looking for.

 

[GrtWtNorth]

I'm looking at replacing my civic as well. It runs great, but I get nervous as it approaches 200,000 km (160,000 miles). I've looked at MSRP, fuel and O&M costs for a variety of cars including 100% electric Nissan Leaf and Ford Focus. What I've discovered is this:

* fuel efficient conventional gasoline cars cost $15,000-20,000 but will consume $2,500 per year in fuel. (Based on Canadian fuel prices, which works out to about $4 per gallon.)
* hybrids and diesel cars cost around $30,000 and consume about $1,200 per year in fuel. O&M costs are the same or slightly higher than conventional cars. (Hybrids have more components to break, and deisels require more expensive oil changes.)
* 100% electric cars cost $35,000 to $40,000, but the energy cost is $500-800 depending on local electricity prices. However, with only an electric drive system, maintenance is streamlined and less expensive (in theory). No oil changes, no radiator, no engine air filters...
* Looking at 5-year costs, a hybrid is nearly the same as a small high-performance conventional car like the 200 HP Honda Civic Si or a Mini Cooper S.

If you're looking at keeping the car only 3-5 years, your best bet is to buy a fuel-efficient car with a conventional engine that meets your family's needs.

If you plan to keep your car 10 years or more, and you're concerned that fuel prices will double or triple within 3-5 years, you may want to consider investing in more sophisticated engine technology (hybrid, diesel, or electric).

If you drive primarily in the city (very little +60 mph), and never more than 100 miles in a day, a 100% electric car might be ideal.

What have I decided?
1. I'm going to keep my '98 Civic running as long as I can. New cars are expensive, and not much better for fuel consumption.
2. I need to look at more vehicles and evaluate my priorities. Especially the fun-factor. (I'd love a Cooper Mini S. Or a Jetta TDI.)

 

[herdtoDisney]

I don't have one, but I've seen the ads for the Chevy Cruze-supposedly it gets 42 mpg, and it's not a hybrid. I actually read that this vehicle is popular worldwide.

 

[mom2val]

)