4.2 years to recoup premium in fuel savings

Don't take this personally, but after a while these how many years to break even stories are tiresome.

How many years does it take a set of bling-bling wheels to pay back?


Or, how many years is the payback on a hummer?

Why don't people ask those questions?

I drove my Prius off the lot, including license plates and tax at $25k. For a fully equipped mid size car, that's a bargain these days...

 

/\/\What dandeman said./\/\
In the automotive world, a hybrid drive is about the only option that could ever pay for itself, never mind pay for itself two or three times over during the life of the car. The leather seats, power moonroof, chrome 18" wheels with sport tires, V8 engine, premium audio, rear seat DVD, and extra body molding will never do anything but cost you more money. Besides, if you've ever pumped 8 gallons to go 400+ miles it becomes obvious that the hybrid drive can be plenty of fun. We would say it's good clean fun.

 

Price premium for the Prius? For the size, real space, and the important features on the Prius there are no other cars that compete. It is sad that the features that are standard on the Prius never seem to be taken into account by people making these comparisons. Checking out these comparison cars always seem to be smaller or when the standard items on the Prius are added to the comparison car their prices jump to more than the Prius. SAD.

 

In that same vein (no pun intended) when I consider all the thousands spent on that wedding ring 15 years ago, that works out to several hundered dollars per . . . . oh never mind

 

I wonder if they considered brake, starter and alternator normalized costs? I revamped my original purchasing spread sheet, and used a Pontiac G6 Base, which is like $20,090. I came out with a 3.1 year to break-even result.

The rational I used was that resale costs will track expeced maintenance costs. So, I just costed the weaar on each device on a normalized (per year, or per mile) basis.

 

3rd repost

This is the 3rd repost of the same info that I posted in http://priuschat.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40192. The fuel economy numbers they used for at least two gasoline vehicles are suspect too. See my post.

 

Ho Hum... In 2007 and 2007, I bought my Prius-es for the ecological cleanness and the remarkable technology. I never expected my former vehicles (Jaguar, Cadillac, Ford, Nash, Toyota, etc.) to 'pay me back' for anything.

 

The interesting thing that nobody seems to mention is what happens after the 4.2/3.1/whatever time? The Prius becomes something of an investment (if you believe in the concept of a penny saved is a penny earned).

 

Please let the old "break-even" horse die. R.I.P.

 

You have to take into consideration the price you're paying for gasoline. I've been paying over $6.50/gallon here in Germany since I bought my 2005 Prius Executive, so I suppose I'll break even any day now. It's not important, though. I love the car and visit the gas station once per month, as opposed to every two weeks with my last Toyota.

 

Well, if you only drive 12,000 miles per year, then those figures are valid. The second year I had my car, I drove 19,419 miles, and the third year I did 17,314 miles. Also, my lifetime average is right around 50 mpg. I tend to keep cars until they drop, so it might actually end up paying for itself over a conventional car by the time I'm through with it!!!

 

My Prius paid for itself the moment I first pressed the "Start" button.

 

Gas price was based on $3.14

For us cali people... payback would probably be less than 4 years... = )

 

3.096 years.... roughly 3.1 years... seems like you already made it.. hahahah

 

What about depreciation? I would think depreciation on a $50,000 SUV is much worse than it is on a $22,00 hybrid.

 

Also, the increased trade-in value of the Prius over a non-hybrid wasn't figured in. Neither was the reduced brake, clutch or transmission expenses of a non-hybrid.