New, About to Buy, and EXCITED!

Hi all,

I've been reading this entire forum avidly for about a week. My spouse and I have finally gotten serious about our intent to buy a Prius within the next couple of months, and I'm PUMPED. My work situation will be changing drastically starting in the fall (anywhere from an extra 1,000 to 2,000 miles per month), and my handy dandy Excel spreadsheet tells me that the gas savings from having a Prius will more than pay for a car payment. Our current vehicles are a Mustang and an ancient Explorer, so you can see the difference.

I'm still wading through the myriad decisions to be made. We've narrowed down the year models to 2008 and up, and I'm secretly hoping for a Gen III. We'll almost definitely be buying used, but I'm hoping to find a vehicle for a good price that's still within the 3 years/36k mile warranty in order to add the Platinum warranty I've read about here.

The only tricky part to this whole used Prius search is that we live in a rather rural area. I've been scouring a variety of car finding sites and it's pretty apparent that no matter what, we'll almost definitely have to fly out and drive it back.

I've been working on getting financing lined up through a variety of sources, and we'll be going to our local Toyota dealer (who has absolutely zero used Prii on the lot) to do some test driving this weekend. Here's to hoping a good deal comes our way soon!

 

Thanks for the welcome!

Oh yes, definitely agreed. Financing should be lined up this week, the real test will come from finding the actual car.

 

Yes, it does, and the slight insurance increase, too. (Explorer only has liability, it's basically a beater). Hard to argue against a car payment that'll actually end up saving me money!

 

Ha, here in the Texas boonies, 100 miles is nothing! We're probably talking at least 500, which makes it hard to just go check a dealership out, you know? If I'm having to make a trip like that, well, I'm coming home with a car.

To take the Explorer off our policy and add a Prius, it'll be an extra $22/month; but this is also adding comprehensive and collision, so I'm pretty pleased.

 

My thoughts exactly! I'm actually rather sad to get rid of the Explorer - it's rather nice to have a beater and it still runs like a champ.

Oh yes, I'm definitely familiar with those lonely stretches in NM, too! That's exactly our plan - test drive at the dealership here, then get to hunting. Incidentally, we'll probably be hitting up several dealerships in NM for our purchase. Albuquerque is much closer than Dallas, what a crazy state.

 

I appreciate the heads-up. Santa Fe is pretty close, Las Cruces is further but not too bad (TX Panhandle here).

 

Yep, Amarillo.

Thanks! I'll be sure to update on our progress.

 

The Panhandle has some crazy, crazy weather. We had several days this winter that we were colder than the North Pole. Now the area is gearing up for tornado season, then temps of 100+ this summer. Why do I live here, again?