Drove 2008 Altima:

I had the opportunity to drive a 2008 Altima hybrid to a green expo this past Saturday and as such out about 110 miles on it. My average MPG (3/4 highway miles) was 37.6mpg as measured by the vehicle's mpg calculator. Acceleration and handling were very good and it handled the few rough spots in the road easily.

I noticed the brakes seemed "touchy" in comparision with other cars, similiar to the old mopars in the 1970s, but I actually like this feeling once I recovered from the first couple of brake taps.

The transmission seemed a bit odd to me however. Not bad... Just a strange feeling at the shift points and several times it felt like it was trying to figure out what gear it wanted to be in, but perhaps that is because the car is brand new with only 166 miles showing on the odometer.

I found the electronic information a bit cryptic in the display but again, my unfamiliarity with the vehicle might be the problem.

Overall it is a nice ride but the mileage was dissapointing for me.

No. The hybrid... Sticker on the windows said twenty-seven grand and change... And hybrid was on the front fenders... Am I wrong? I only had the car for about nine hours...

With that kind of mileage it had to be a hybrid. Can you confirm this? I've actually looked at an altima(the 2.5) to replace my wife's versa with. Not bad cars and with the current cash back program you can get a pretty good deal on them. Of course I do wanna get another prius but the only toyota dealer in town gets one in at a time and it's sold in a few days.

It was the hybrid model. The "shifting" sensation I felt was almost like a "ghost foot" between the gas and brakes as I was negotiating slow/gradual acceleration. It was not there during hard acceleration but it was very noticable when trying to maintain a consistent level of performance on rolling hills ( allowing acceleration going downhill whil minimizing yet allowing a gradual slowing going uphill). It was only noticable with a very light foot on the accelerator. For me, I found is annoying and frustrating as the car "felt" as though it was downshifting beyond my control.

I drive an Altima 2003 (bought in May 2003), 2.5 and get 20 mpg city and when I go on long trips I average 28 mpg with air conditioning running and 32 without the air.

I drive only 1.5 miles to work daily, come home for lunch.

The car has 32,000 miles on it. Lately I have been averaging about 350 miles a month because I have been planning travel more carefully and have not gone on any long trips.

I have been thinking of getting a Prius.

Would anyone want to convince me that this is right time to do it?

A lot of dealers out here had the Altima Hybrid at around $22,000 last year. Had i not gotten such a deal on my Prius, i would have gotten the Altima.

For MY 08, the only transmission choices for non-hybrid Altimas are the CVT and manual. The NAH is (not surprisingly) CVT only. Automatics are gone as a choice.

I've driven my mom's (leftover) 07 NAH a bunch of times. Most recently, I've found that it seems to shutdown the ICE pretty aggressively when you left off the gas <42 mph. You can sort of feel a lurch and see the EV mode indicator come on.

Either the Prius doesn't try to shutdown the ICE as aggressively while still rolling (below 42 mph) or it does so more smoothly. Unfortunately, since I don't have CAN View or a Scangauge, it's not easy for me to tell when the shutdowns occur at higher speeds.

I have no clue how accurate the trip computer's mileage indication is vs. actual as my mom refuses to even bother calculate her mileage nor look at the trip computer. I've personally seen it say in the 38-40 mpg range.

Altima ICE shutdown

You're talking about the rough ICE shutdown on the Prius? It's still kinda rough on my Prius after >29K miles. However, on the Prius, the rough shutdowns were only as was I stopping/coming to a stop, never speeds above 20 mph.

I forget how many miles are on my mom's NAH now. It's definitely over 1K, possibly 2K now.

The NAH is almost *exactly* like the Prius in its powertrain
construction and operation, only bigger. The numbers and
thresholds for what state you wind up in are identical,
witness the 42 mph thing among the more obvious ones. The
entire driveline's design IP is licensed from Toyota so that
Nissan would have *something* to offer without having to dance
around the other designs that were already out there. They
chose wisely, albeit making the result a bit of a power-wagon.
.
_H*

here is my "two centavos" on the hybrids out there.

before i bought the prius, i drove the nissan altima hybrid, honda civic hybrid and for "Sheets and giggles" i drove the ford escape hybrid. my conclusions are that all the mentioned vehicles has it's own advantages here and there.

the reason i bought the toyota prius is that it's the ONLY car that when you say PRIUS, it's ALWAYS a hybrid.......then, and the most important reason, i wanted a vehicle that had the best mpg rating.......if i was going to go green, might as well go all the way green.

again, my two cents only.

I test drove an Altima hybrid. And I'm glad, because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have known how great the Prius was. It's a fairly small sedan and the trunk is teeny-tiny. Add that to the poorer MPG vs. the Prius, and there was no comparison for me. When I test drove the Prius after the Altima H, I also found the Prius more enjoyable to drive.

The Altima H I drove was only on the lot through a fluke (it was a NH dealer and they don't sell the Altima H for some reason) and they said they'd give it to me for $26K. It had cloth seats. I bought my Prius 2008 package 6 for the same price a couple of weeks later.

For me, if my Prius (w/CA HOV stickers) somehow got totaled, if I didn't want to buy a used Prius esp. one w/carpool lane stickers, I'd seriously consider the Altima Hybrid partly cuz of its price after tax credit.

As I've mentioned, I've driven my mom's NAH a bunch of times and it's definitely quieter and a lot more powerful. I'd be willing to sacrifice some fuel economy in return for that.

And thus begins the slippery slope.

My other car is a 2007 Altima (same as 2008) -- non-hybrid model because they don't sell them in NC. It is a bigger/heavier car for sure. But I've read that the hybrid model's trunk is very small. In the non-hybrid model it's huge.

I "thought" I wouldn't see much difference in the mpg because my commute is mostly highway. I average between 29 and 32 mpg driving to and from work (as opposed to the hybrid's 34 average mixed). But ... if I do any city driving the mpgs drop like a ROCK, and then I can't keep up with the Altima hybrid.

We took the Altima on a road trip in August: all highway -- my wife, me, and 2 kids along with our luggage. The computer mpg stated 37 mpg, but the actual calculated mpg was only around 34 mpg. I have found that the Altima's computer is way off (high) -- and the higher the average mpg, the further off it is. For example, if the computer said 30 mpg, I might calculate 29. I normally have to subtract between 2 & 3 mpg from the computer to get the actual. With the Prius, it seems to be within 1 mpg most of the time, though this last tank it was higher and farther off as well.

The Altima is a very nice driving automobile IF you like sports-car-type tuning. I'm not saying it's really a sports car w/the 2.5. But the steering, braking and acceleration are all *very* responsive. It's very nice, unless you just don't like that kind of responsiveness. It does have a CVT transmission which I happen to like, along with a faux manual gear shift which comes in handy from time to time. I believe the CVT contributes to the slightly better mpg over similar sized cars.

But, obviously, if you want to maximize mpg's the Prius wins hands down. I would have purchased the Prius "instead" of the Altima had I known gas prices would climb so high (meaning over $3/gallon). We ended up selling our 22-24mpg Sienna for it a year later. If the Altima hybrid offered at least nominally higher mpg than it does (say, 40 mpg) then it might be more worth the extra cost. Otherwise, might as well get the Prius and be happy with the real gas savings. For comparison, ever since we purchased the Prius, I have been driving it to work instead of the Altima and haven't seen *under* 50 1/2 mpg yet!

Just my opinion, of course.

Ryan

Isn't the drivetrain the same as the hybrid Camry? I understood they bought them from Toyota.