Pre Prius Owner questions

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Cyclesome\";p=\"73956)</div>

1. Wrong. The battery will probably last the life of the car. It will certainly last much longer than two years.
2. Wrong. There has been talk in some places of taxing per mile driven instead of per gallon of gasoline. That would lessen the advantage of owning a hybrid, but it's just talk.
3. Possibly true, unless the price of gas goes up significantly, which it probably will.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Cyclesome\";p=\"73956)</div>

Well, my first recommendation would be, visit the PriusChat Knowledgebase and FAQ page (upper left hand corner, under Navication). Also, use the Search function for some of the questions you're asking.

That said, here's some short and not particularly detail-rich answers to your questions:

Bogus. I've yet to encounter anyone on PriusChat, with a Prius Classic they bought 4-5 years ago, who's had to get the hybrid battery changed.

Toyota gives an 8-year warranty on the hybrid battery, so you're covered for at least that long. (May be even longer in California.)

Not any more than any other car -- at least not in the state of Washington. (And in fact, it's cheaper -- I don't have to go in for -- or pay for -- emissions tests for at least 5 years.)

That will depend on several things:

• What were you planning to buy instead of a Prius. I.e., how much less would you pay for a car other than a Prius if you bought it?
• The price of gas while you own the car.
• How long you own the car.
• How/where you drive it. (I tend to think this is a pretty small factor over an 8-10 year old car lifespan.)
  • 
    
    If you were going to get a Hyundai or a Honda (non-hybrid) Civic, and gas prices stay below $2.50 for the next 5 years, and you sell it after that -- you probably won't see that much money back.
    
    But if you're like me, and your second choice was a Mazda 3 with various extras -- the price was within ~$1K of what I paid for the Prius. Plus, I keep cars a long time. Plus, I bet gas goes above $3 sometime in the next coupla years.
    
    But gas economy wasn't why I bought the Prius. I bought it because I thought the engineering was cool!.)
    
    But that's me.

 

Some of those are a little uncertain, but I can point you in the right direction. Thanks for bringing these misconceptions to our attention.

1) I answered this question (and other wear-and-tear related concerns) in this thread: http://priuschat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?...p?p=73781#73781 Based on my references (provided in that topic) you would probably need to drive over three hundred thousand miles per year, or get in a serious collision accident every two years, to need to do that. Those references are great -- print those out, take a minute to educate yourself on batteries (which isn't easy -- you need to be ready to answer a bunch of weird questions -- but we'll help ), and take those in and defend your new purchase.

2) Politics isn't my thing, but I think...some legal body...congress?... passed or is considering passing something which will allow states to give hybrids access to HOV (multi-occupant) lanes with a single occupant. That's a special privilege. I think if they didn't like hybrid vehicles, they wouldn't do things like that. I don't have references -- someone else can point him in the right direction.

3) No, you probably won't, unless gas hits a prohibitively high price per gallon (like $3 or $3.50). I'm putting words in your mouth, so remove the words that don't apply... but because you're a safe driver, and you're kinda indifferent to high performance cars (that is, you don't really get off on that feeling of being pushed deep into the driver's seat by acceleration), all of the other luxury car features (DVD navigation, keyless entry and smart start, etc.) appeal to you. Plus, perhaps even if you pay the same as a normal car, you're happy to pay more money to Japan if you can get away with paying less money to middle-eastern-country warlords.

I don't own a Prius yet, but I would probably respond: "I don't really care -- I know I'll save some money on gas, and because I like being a safe, relaxed, non-competitive driver, the car is fun to drive."

Hope this helps!

--Spence

 

The concept of “never realize enough fuel savings to justify the purchase price†doesn’t really apply to the Prius. It’s origin comes from the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) crowd.

There is no non-hybrid version of the Prius to allow for a proper comparison of exactly what “extra†we are paying.

Many Prius owners think their car is actually worth more than what they paid for it.

Others - non Prius owners - have accused Toyota of selling the Prius at a discount in order to entice buyers. . . “They will never make a profit.â€


I become a little more smug each day I see the gas prices rise.

Chances are prices will hit $3 per gallon and never return to $1 or less. Either way, the Prius has removed any worry about the price of gas.

I get better than twice the gas milage compared to my former V6 Taurus. If we ever see $3 per gallon . . . I’ll just put on my Prius goggles and see $1.50 instead . . . . ($3.00 / 2)

 

For some clarification, I'm pretty sure the battery warranty is 150,000/10 years in California. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Number 2 is simply a myth that popped up when some states gave consideration to a tax by mile system. This was simply hypothetical...hybrids do reduce gas tax revenues, certainly, so hypothetically, if everyone got one, there would be a huge tax shortfall. Of course, not many people do have a hybrid, so there's no sense in changing. If anything did change, hybrids would not be exclusively taxed, the taxes would be the same across the board. I can't think of a single time a hybrid-only tax was mentioned, even hypothetically.

As for number 3, a hybrid system supposedly only increases fuel savings by 25%. The hybrid system is the fancy part of the fuel savings, but remember that the savings come from an entire system. Energy efficency, aerodynamics, tires, you name it. So certainly, a hybrid system itself, saving only 25% at the current costs of gas, makes it hard to justify the premium, but with all the other systems, fuel savings are greater. If you drive frequently and are switching from anything short of few select small cars or diesel car (diesel engines also reduce fuel consumption about 25% but pollute more), you're probably going to save a bit of cash over the lifetime of the car. I also personally believe gas prices are going to go up over the long term, so savings and sure to increase.

In short, however, you shouldn't buy a Prius for gas savings simply to "pay off" the hybrid system. I personally don't look at the gas savings relative to the cost of the hybrid system...I simply fill with joy from filling up the car with less than 20 bucks and then going more than 400 miles on that tank.

I love the Prius, and would have gotten it if it only performed at 30 MPG. Loving the car is really what matters. :mrgreen:

 

I'll second Sufferin' Prius Envy...what vehicle offers 4 doors and a hatchback with room for 5, an extremely quiet ride, has cruise control, am/fm/CD, and automatic climate control as standard equipment, and has an available smart key system, vehicle stability control?

I too am getting better than twice the mileage of the car I traded. Instead of paying $120 a month for gas at $1.89, I'm paying $40 a month for gas at $2.09. And smiling big time, because this car feels more like a luxury car than an 'econobox'. The way I figure it, it will pay for itself much sooner than any naysayer's might like to think.

 

Given the large interior room (especially the back seat legroom, I'd be inclined to compare the Prius to a 4-banger Camry. I don't know what the base Camry goes for, or it's mileage, but this way the options and quality are equal, the gas and tax savings of the Prius against the price differential (of the base model Prius).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(KTPhil\";p=\"74076)</div>

I'd agree with the Camry as being a good comparison point -- but would provide a caveat that it might be one of the higher priced models -- the SE or LE, maybe even the XLE.

Looking over the Camry model chart at Toyota.com, there are a number of options that come standard on the Prius (even at the very lowest end) that appear only on the higher-end Camrys.

Examples of standard features on the base Prius that are only in the high-end Camry XLE, which lists for almost $2000 over the base Prius:

• heated outside mirrors
• auto up/down windows
• MFD
• Defroster-linked CFC-free automatic climate control with air filter and rear-seat vents
• illuminated vanity mirrors
  • 
    
    Though there are some things the Camry (all models) have that the Prius doesn't have, too. And I assume that it is rare to pay MSRP for a Camry, as opposed to it being standard (until recently) to pay it for a Prius. As supply continues to increase, I assume Prius prices will be haggled over, too.
    
    Anyway, if you use the Camry as a comparison point, strikes me that we're not paying much "extra" (if anything) for the privilege of having a hybrid.

 

Everything they said, plus the value, at least for me, of driving the best possible compromise between having to drive many miles per year to make a living and still wanting to do the best I can for this sick earth, is immeasurable.

 

Prius provides another positive: air quality. As an AT-PZEV Prius has minimal emissions and in many states does not need an annual smog check. As a Prius owner you acknowledge, and pay, up front, the cost of air quality impacts.

A simple test I observe every day enroute to work: when stopped at a stop light the Prius is off, all surrounding cars (except other Prii) are idling. I save twice: once in air quality and again in fuel economy.

 

You all (but one, who eluded to it) failed to consider miles driven/year. You COULD drive 100K in one year. I'll probably do it in a little more than 3, so warranty is up after that, unless you are in CA or NY, in which case I think it is 120/8.

By the way, it doesn't look like the MGs or PSD is covered under the hybrid warranty, as someone posted under another topic.

 

Probably.

 

This has been well covered by other posters, but I'd like to add another viewpoint on #3.

It's a red herring. The assumption is that hybrid owners should be concerned only with spending the least possible amount of money over the car's lifetime. Prove that the hybrid isn't the cheapest option, and bingo, it becomes an irrational choice.

The fallacy is that this assumption is never applied to other car owners. Transfer it to a non-hybrid car and you see how absurd it is: "How long do you have to drive that BMW before you've made up the difference in price between it and a Camry?" Carried to its logical conclusion, it should be applied to anyone purchasing a new car, since it's almost impossible to justify taking that first-year depreciation.

I didn't buy a Prius to save money on gasoline; I bought a Prius, among other reasons, so I'd use LESS gasoline, which isn't the same thing. The Prius also pollutes less than a conventional car and is an unexpected delight to drive. (For instance, how do you put a price on the mental health benefit of having a Prius in rush-hour traffic? It almost makes gridlock fun.) Even if I end up spending a little more over its life cycle than I would have with some other hypothetical car - something neither I nor anyone else will ever know for certain - I'm happy to know my money went to a company that's in the forefront of green engineering. And that's worth something too.

 

I almost hate to read questions like this being posted.

Let me take a wild guess Cycle, you heard these myths and fairy tails (except #3) from, "well meaning" friends once you told them you had already ordered the car?

I bet each one was prefaced with, "I heard..." or "I read on the Internet..."