Want To Buy As Company Car, Need Help Deciding

Good luck on deciding.
I went for the prius due to mpg (brand new averaging 50) safety (got the higher package, but if had gone for the lower package would make sure it had all of the air bags)
I like the technology of the prius better than that of the civic.
The prius also has plenty of room to haul, great hatchback. I am always hauling plants trees, dogs etc.
My frist drive with it was 330 miles from the dealer to home, in high gusting winds, it drove wonderfully never felt like it was drifting leaning or being pushed around. Worse problem was keeping the speed down drove so smooth would be up at 80 mph without even knowing it.
Last two days been driving in town, great pick up, don't feel like I am in a peanut next to the lg trucks.

 

I think you should go for the prius (suprise huh?). Adding on most saftey features (extra airbags) are not that expensive. You will get higher gas mileage and it will also make a real statement for the bak ("we are env friendly"). A civic will not be recognized as a hybrid by most drivers.

 

Are you planning on doing a fleet order? I read plural in your post and figured that you would be purchasing 3, 4, 5 or more at the same time. You can actually save yourself some money if you do a fleet order. Ordering multiple copies of the same thing usually should mean a discount for you, and it should be good for the dealer because it has the potential to increase their allocation number, meaning more stock Prii will arrive on their lot in the future for sale to off the street buyers or people that have standing orders. If they turned down a fleet order and didn't give a fleet discount they would be fools.

If you haven't started a conversation with the dealership fleet/Internet sales manager then do so. If they do not have a fleet sales manager then insist that you deal with the regular sales manager with regard to this purchase. Since this is an institutional purchase I don't think it would be smart to just go through any old sales flunky they have on the floor.

Ok, as a company vehicle I can only assume that there will be multiple drivers and possibly many different passenger or cargo situations. That means you need a car that is both comfortable to carry multiple passengers and has enough cargo flexibility to handle nearly any future need. The back seat of the Prius has plenty of leg room. Much more than the Civic. Why? The two are different classes of vehicle. The Prius is a mid-size car by classification. The Civic is still a compact. The Prius also has more cargo utility being a hatchback and having a fully folding rear seatbacks. In general the Prius is a more comfortable vehicle and I think will be better on longer drives and less fatiguing for the driver and passengers.

In most driving situations the Prius will give you more mpg than the Honda, although Honda is working real hard to get their hybrid technology IMA more efficient, but the two hybrid systems cannot be compared side-by-side without noticing significant engineering differences. It doesn't necessarily make Honda's hybrid system inferior, but I certainly don't like it as much as Toyota's. It just isn't as graceful as Toyota's system. Mostly opinion there.

 

With that many miles I'm assuming there are different drivers. If the drivers are constantly changing and are pulled from a large pool of people I'd probably go with the Honda. IMO the Prius gearbox isn't intuitive enough for folks to just jump in and go.

If it's just a few different drivers then I'd go with the Prius, mainly due to it's size and mileage advantage.

 

So it comes down to miles. If your cars gets driven a lot of miles then you can still make the price up. That and maintenence costs. I saw somewhere a bank in Cali that where using the Classic Prius as a courier (very similar to what you are doing) and the maintence costs for the Prius over it's life seemed really low. So it migght be iniitally more expensive to buy a hybrid but total cost might be lower.

The civic would be a fine car maybe escpecially if driven hard.

 

If you're looking only at purchase price as a measure of cost, I think you're missing a big part of the picture. Have you prepared a five or ten year spreadsheet showing estimated maintenance costs, gas, insurance, and resale value? That should give you a better idea.

 

Toyaota suspended fleet orders for the Prius' (Prii?) late last year. If they've resumed it's news to me.

 

I do not know about Toyota suspending fleet orders. I just heard of one dealer who sold 40 Prii to the California AAA. Maybe they didn't call it a "fleet"...