Cannot pull the trigger to buy Prius v

What's their resoning? Car enthusiast rate good cars by horsepower and acceleration. The Prius would not make it on the list.

Actually MOST cars don't have a problem. It's a small percentage. I have over 17K miles on mine with no brake groan.

At the current average of $5.00 AUD/gal and assuming 15K miles per year:
Car A (a typical hatchback) averaging 30 mpg will cost 500g X 5.00 = 2500 AUD
Prius V avg 42 mpg -- 357 g X 5.00 = 1785 AUD
Difference ~ 700 AUD per year. 10K / 700 = 14 years.

If you are planning on keeping it 'till it dies (I'm on the same plan), the V will save you even more in petrol and maintenance.

Ultimately, you need to make the decision as to what will make you happy. A car that saves you money in the long run may not be as rewarding to drive/enjoy. Prius is not for everyone. If you need the "vroom-vroom", Prius is not for you. Don't get me wrong. It has plenty of pickup for normal daily driving but ...

 

More irrelevant to a discussion on break even point on a Prius for average drivers.

Someone putting 120,000 miles per year on a vehicle needs an intervention. They are spending 72 hours, 3 days a year, in their car. And it is an environmental disaster, spewing tons of pollutants into the air and water and a financial disaster spending $10K a year on gasoline.

I'm sure there are nutcases like that out there but exposing the poor psychos and holding them up as examples of why to buy a Prius is meaningless.

 

You mean like cab drivers and other people who depend on driving their Prius for a living. And imagine how much more they would "spew and polute" if they drove a non-hybrid. Maybe we should go back to riding horses. What do you think?

 

In our Gasoline Sales thread the recent price of gaso in Australia is $5.46 vs. $3.59 for US average. So it depends how many miles per year you put onto the car.

In the USA, the example I have been using is CAMRY LE Hybrid vs. CAMRY LE. Cost difference here approaches $5000 for the hybrid. But it gets 40 MPG vs. 28 MPG. Then I run tax calcs for different state tax scenarios. Some states like VA tax hybrids pretty hard, so between state taxes and initial cost, it is hard to pay off the hybrid version unless you are 15,000 miles per year or more. I think it is possible I would get a used hybrid next time, in order to have the math work out for savings in Virginia's tax scenario.

 

Or maybe some people need to go home and rethink before posting completely useless off the topic post...

 

Well...who knows...maybe Jimbo's post about someone driving 120,000 miles a year was relevant for the folks looking at buying a Prius V and was not as completely useless and off topic as you state.

 

Of course, that information is very useful. It's nice to see how our cars will perform based on the accelerated aging of cars like 2fas4u or some of the numerous cab drivers who post on these forums.

However, the diatribes about the evils of driving cars and the pollution by those who drive for a living is pointless in this discussion. I believe that there is a whole subforum for those kind of discussions. Perhaps you can start a thread about it there.

Enough said. Let's move on to the topic at hand.

 

You gotta do the math for yourself and figure if its worth it. Can you live with something cheaper? how long do you plan to keep it? 5-10 years is a long time. My last car bought new, a 2008 honda fit I sold to buy the v after only 4 years of ownership which felt like an eternity.
Not a bad car if you don't drive much, but i ended up selling the 4 year old honda with 198,000km on it. I fully intended to keep the honda for 10+ years, it eventually just wore me out, very tiring to drive long distances so i wanted something more comfortable without sacrificing internal space or fuel economy.
The v was last on my list when first checking out the prius family. It came down to wanting the softex seats and the cargo space was a bonus for hauling my mountain bikes to the trail. the v luxury package was cheaper than the liftback tech package so that did it for me.
35,000km in to ownership including some long distance road trips I can see many happy years ahead with this car. Its a pleasure to drive in the city and comfy highway cruiser, an "appliance" if you will, and that suits me just fine.

 

!!!!!

 

It means if you pay $5,000 more for a hybrid, when will your recoup that money via gas savings.

 

!!!!!

 

Mr. Lack, I tend not to look at the overall cost of a car, simply the monthly payment as I tend not to keep cars for very long anyway. by all means if it does not make financial sense to you pass it up.

 

No every Prius is fine on regular. Some have hinted Premium may help going uphill.

 

not here, but can't speak for your country

 

Absolutely, sir. My similar story had the opposite outcome: My daily driver was a Camry XLE Hybrid for a couple years. When it was time to trade in the wife's Sienna, I was drooling over a Prius because I love how quiet, comfortable, and gizmo-loaded they are.

At the end of the day, we figured that we already have something with great MPGs and serenity, so we opted to go with the far less responsible FR-S. It's spartanly equipped, deafeningly loud compared to the HyCam, and only gets about 28MPG with me behind the wheels; but its $10k cheaper, and it puts a smile on my face.

The best I can explain it is that, it's agape with the Camry, but lust for the FR-S. I love driving either cars, and I am sure I would have loved the Prius, too. But this is what works for us today

 

David,

As you crunch the numbers, consider this. It doesn't take much to get the V to yield 45-50 mpg (5.2 to 4.6 l/100km) per tank. As you go to the gas station, you endup putting 8-9 gals each fillup (unless you tend to stretch your tanks). That's 38.00 -42.75 per fill up. You can expect 400+ miles per tank (over 500 if you play the mpg game).

IMHO, if you decide on the V, just get the basic package. Here in the US a V2 comes loaded with great technology.

Good luck. I hope the V works out for you.