Christov from Southern Middle Tennessee

my name is Chris and I live in a municipality I only half-jokingly refer to as Stepford, Tennessee. I've already made several posts but have not introduced myself here.

In December 2019, I bought a grandmotherly green 2008 Prius (basic model without nav, bluetooth, etc., with about 203,000 miles on the odometer. I paid $2995 out the door from a very small North Georgia used car lot. It replaces a 2004 Volvo XC70 we've had for the past 11 years. Clean title, good Carfax. I'm the fourth owner of this car and I bought it as a kind of cheap, throwaway, economical vehicle for 60 mile round trip workday use. I've replace wiper blades, tires, got an oil change (Mobil 1), had a leak repaired (under left roof panel trim strip). Car's getting about 40 mpg overall. I had a BluLogic unit installed to comply with Tennessee's hands-free telephony law.

I thought I'd hate the car.

Turns out, I love almost everything about the Prius. Except the inaccurate (hopefully) fuel gauge. My wife loved the car but wanted a later model with improved safety features. We got her an early 2016 Prius 3 with ATP from a LARGE Toyota dealer at Huntsville, Alabama. That's been an expensive cautionary tale in buyer beware. Hopefully that car's multiple issues will have been sorted by mid-March. On the other hand, the '16 handles a lot like my old '97 Volvo 850 sedan with manual transmission. Handles great and is fun to drive.

Regarding personal stuff, I enjoy reading (currently reading through the novels that comprise the Star Wars expanded universe - way better than the movies), target shooting with various firearms, bicycling, flatwater kayaking.

Thanks to you all for providing this wealth of information.