My 5 year journey

Greetings fellow Prius drivers! First time poster and the owner of a new silver 2016 Two Eco. I began the process of thinking about another car about 5 years ago, but my 1995 Kia Sportage was still serviceable about town, so no rush (my best hyper-mile attempts yielded 28 mpg/city. What a pig!).

About the Kia. I bought it used for my daughter in 2000 for her to drive to college. Upon her graduation, she bought a Volvo and abandoned the Kia at my house. It sat in the driveway for about a year when I decided to sell my '89 Mazda MPV (who needs it, the kids have flown the coupe) and drive the long paid-for Kia. A bit rough around the edges to put it mildly and it had no airbags and the dash lights did not work and it leaks oil. No big deal, we would take the wife's car when traveling out of town.

Fast forward to 2011. The youngest of my children has graduated from college and dumped their crap in my garage adding to my oldest daughter's crap. Add it all to my crap and we could have been featured on Hoarders. Would have liked to have purchased a car then but there were weddings to be paid for, so I wait.

Three years ago my wife was almost insisting I replace the Kia for safety reasons. About this time the Kia windshield wipers stopped working. Said I would NOT get another car until I had a spot for it in the garage. Not gonna happen. Started cleaning it out, but a major house reno and yet more crap thrown in there.

Had my eye on a used Mini Cooper but a test drive ended that short affair. Then considered a Fiat 500 but reliability was not up to snuff. BMW would be cool except for the cost of maintenance.

Test drove a new Honda Fit a year ago. Not a great experience but it would be adequate for mostly about town driving. But the crap in the garage would not go away. Even with the incentive of a new car we did not finish cleaning it out until 3 weeks ago. Jeez.

Test drove a new Fit again but the seats were not comfortable, the legroom was terrible and the AC struggled. Then looked at a Civic, Corolla, etc. Would settle for either of those.

Why it took so long for me to consider a Prius is beyond me. Maybe I thought they were too expensive? The batteries unreliable? I don't know, but about two weeks ago it just dawned on me; Prius! Makes perfect sense on so many levels. We test drove several used gen 3 models and twice came very close to making a purchase. But we were not thrilled with the acceleration, seat comfort nor road/vehicle noise (the noise did not bother me after driving the Kia for 16 years).

As luck would have it, I stumbled upon this forum and discovered the 2016 Prius was a complete redesign (scary just-in-time due diligence on my part). I gleaned a wealth of knowledge and high confidence in the new model from this site. Went for a test drive and that's all she wrote. We're impressed with the acceleration, comfort, mileage and hushed ride and she gets prettier every day. Done deal but $10k more than we wanted to spend. I prefer buying used but have no regrets (yet).

Maybe if I had waited another week, a Volt or Leaf would've caught my eye. In 6 months, perhaps a Bolt. Two more years (or 3 or 4), a Tesla Model 3!

Gonna miss the old Kia.

 

LOL, we are already there! Three grandsons 4 yo and younger and a grand daughter due next month. The swag is mounting quickly with my wife doing volunteer work at a thrift store and getting first dibs. My daughters have not bought clothes for the boys in over a year. What did ya bring home today, sweetie? Now tossing out more stuff to make room, but not in my garage!. But it's all good, as we say in the South.

 

Ain't that the truth.

Thanks for all the warm welcomes! Great people here.

 

Thank you PriUncut and bisco (and usnavystg and krmcg and ETC(SS))! The vehicle comes with an 800 page manual but this forum is so much better and a lot more fun. I learn something new about it everyday it seems.