Mileage shift to Prius among 2+ Vehicle Households

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Apr 26 2006, 09:28 PM) [snapback]245956[/snapback]</div>

We have a Dakota quad cab and used to drive it on most long trips. Now, unless I expect to need 4WD, we take the Prius. On a 500 mile trip, the difference in cost of gas is more than $75. As a result, the Dakota mileage dropped down to less than 3000 in 2005 from more than 10000 the previous year.

 

My wife has an Envoy. I replaced my much older Integra w/ the Prius. Now that I have a daughter (4 months older than my car), my wife uses it to get her back and forth to the babysitter. Since my commute is about 4 miles round trip, I use her car all week. Saves us a bit of money.

 

We have a 4wd mini-van. We really don't need two cars; I work from home, my wife walks to work, and we live in town so we walk to the store, post office, bakery, marina - we walk everywhere. We only need a car when we drive into Traverse City or go on a trip. At the moment, we are keeping the van for carrying large loads, but we may not need it for that. It turns out we can get a lot more into the Prius than I would have expected.

Tom

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Apr 27 2006, 12:28 AM) [snapback]245956[/snapback]</div>

I've shifted all my driving to the Prius, to the extent possible.

I don't drive much (I don't commute by car). My car is '93 Ford Escort (the "gas miser" model, the last echo of the 70s' gas crises in the domestic car fleet). I used to drive it to run errands, as it got much better city mileage (33 mpg) than my wife's former car (Volvo, 16 mpg). When my wife got a Prius, it took me a while to get my mind around the idea that her car was now both nicer and more efficient than mine. That didn't seem right somehow. A tradeoff between a crappy car with good mileage versus a good car with crappy mileage had been the natural order of things for so long. But with the Prius, there's no tradeoff, which eventually makes it a no brainer. Once that sunk in, the Ford became our penalty car - we only drive it if the Prius isn't available.

That's had two odd side effects. First, our insurer dropped the rate on the Ford because it's driven so little. So, net net, the Prius reduced the insurance costs for our other car, factoring in our behavioral response. Second, though it grieves me to say it, it's made my Ford obsolete the the classic economic sense of the term. It works as well as it ever did, I like it as much as I ever did, but I choose not to drive it any more. Intellectually, I realize that's a good thing, but it still seems like a pity.

 

We used to use my husband's small pickup for a lot of our trips, it was newer than my car and had cruise control. Now we always take the Prius unless we absolutely can't fit an item into the Prius. The Prius holds a lot more than we had thought it would and is more comfortable to drive. Aside from gas mileage and emissions, I love the Prius and usually I only care if a car has 4 wheels and runs, and if it only needed 3 wheels, that would be okay too.

 

DH has a 2004 Camry.
I had a 1995 Corolla.

Even though the Corolla was big enough for the three of us (young child, too), we rarely ever drove that car as a family car. I drove it almost exclusively and I don't drive a whole lot.

Now, we have the Camry and the 2006 Prius. I personally drive more now simply because I enjoy driving the Prius! Also, DH drives the Prius three days a week for his commute (the days I work from home). AND, the Prius is ALWAYS the car we choose for family outings now. It's funny because our daughter calls the Prius the "family" car and she calls the Camry "Daddy's" car. She used to call the Corolla "Mommy's" car. I guess I don't have a car anymore??? ROFLOL

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Apr 27 2006, 12:28 AM) [snapback]245956[/snapback]</div>

Before the Prius we would drive my wife's Outback anytime we went out together. Now that I have the Prius it's become "our" vehicle to go out in. On top of that she has begun borrowing the Prius whenever I'm no going out.

 

I guessed "5000-7499", not that I have this down exactly.

But shifting the miles is not really much about the mileage the Prius gets, and more about it being the newer car. It replaced a '97 Plymouth Breeze that had a whole lot of miles on it and got maybe 20 mpg. Our other car is a 2000 Honda Civic, gets low 30's generally. So we used to take the Civic on long trips, when we commuted together, etc. primarily because it was the newer and presumably more reliable vehicle, and only secondarily for the better mpg. Now those miles shift to the Prius for the same reasons (and as a bonus, it has more interior space!)

Hopefully when it comes time to replace my Civic (hopefully several years from now!), we'll get an even higher-mileage car, or at least not step backwards!

- Michelle

 

If we are going to be driving on a trip longer than 150 miles we drive the Prius, other wise we drive the tundra to keep the mileage and wear/tear down on the Prius.

Figuring it costs me $3.00 every 22mi. on the Tundra