Will the release of the G4 devalue the G3? And new vs. used q.

Pick your price and buy. If you wait until the last week of the year, what you see is what you get...left overs.

 

It's a good strategy if you will settle for any color and a limited choice of options (4 and 5's might be in very short supply). It's a gamble.

 

Priuses are going to devalue themselves all by themselves whether the new G4 is a boom or a bust.
This is because unless you're looking to buy today's equivalent of a 60's muscle car.....(Spoiler Alert: Priuses aren't!) any car that you buy is going to depreciate itself down to about 2-3 thousand dollars in 10-15 years.

The idea is to buy low, drive long, and pay cash when you can.
This may sound like crazy talk to most Millennials who have to finance cell phones, but it's actually achievable if you do it right.

Most of the time, used versus new is a no-brainer but if I were in the market for an $18,000 hatch, I'd lean towards a leftover '15 and then drive it for 10-15 years. Even if you have no down money, a 48 month loan is doable for a G3-2 for about $450, which sounds high until you understand that driving this car for 8 years and banking the 48 months that you don't have to make payments will actually allow you to cash flow your next new car.

There's not much difference in the street prices for new base G3s and some of the low miles, 'gently' used late model Priuses, but Priuses drivers tend to adopt a closed hood maintenance policy, and I've always been skeptical about a 1-2 year old used car.

If you're not too picky about color, and if you accept the notion that (1) a base Prius actually has a lot of useful features and (2) a non-base model Prius has yesterday's technology at tomorrow's prices-----then you'll save.

The idea with cars is that they're NOT an investment.
They're an expense.

Good Luck!!!

 

the g4 is so hideous, that when it hits the showroom, the price of a g3 will go up. better get yours now!

 

+1

 

Prius prices track gas prices. I believe we've seen the bottom of the market. As already said, the best time to buy the car is when you find the one you want at a fair price.

Egg Salad, now that the $2000 has expired, what's the current rebate?

 

Bisco's obviously being tongue-in-cheek, and likely 2015 prices WILL dip when 2016 becomes available. Just goes to show there's no accounting for taste.

 

Oh no! Did Cyclopathic hack into Bisco's account? Is Bisco going to start a third thread titled "Will the G4 be refreshed for 2017 because the 2016 is uglier, fatter, and slower"

 

But 20 grand? Forget it!

 

Oh...they're out there if you get to know the right people.

 

If I had $17k I'd take a 60 month 0% interest loan on a new Prius and pay off the car nice and slow. You're going to save up the $5k price delta in 5 years anyway.

In fact, that is what I did in 2012. I had the $26k for a PiP and Toyota gave a cash rebate, 0 down, and the 0% APR. I had to wait until Oct to get the deal. So sometime around now is when the better deals come out. I have a sky high monthly payment of $543. It doesn't matter because I placed the amount on a high yield savings account and it gets auto paid from there. Of course, I make very little interest to make it worth the trouble and 5 years is too short to put the amount in more risky investments but the piece of mind of having a large cushion of cash for emergencies has been worth it.

Oh and concerning the OP. My experience is that typically, cars get discounted heavily towards the end of its model years. Then a new model comes out which typically carries a higher price tag. The next gen doesn't devalue the current gen. Rather, people are willing to pay more for the next gen. (G3 can be had for thousand under invoice while the G4 will be sold at MSRP + to suckers who pay markup) My answer is no, the G4 would not devalue the G3.