Newer car? Thinking about doing what I said I wasn't going to do

[mcrews]

btw, your entire first paragraph is wishful thinking. If it was actually acurate they would have done the deal.
that's exactly my point.
again, you fail to understand the 'pricing' of used cars on dealers lots. What do the actually SELL for? The only person who pays sticker is a fool or someone with bad credit who is shopping for payments.

[ChazInMT]

I just went from a 17 MPG pickup to a 36MPG civic, that was a no brainer. I'm not so sure that if your RSX-S getting 36 or so MPG through careful driving isn't a keeper, unless you're having real problems with it. I also don't see where you'd save anywhere near $800 per year and you'll certainly be trading even for repairs & upkeep. I figured $370/yr in fuel savings using 34 & 42 MPG at 22K/yr and $3/gal. The RSX is a sweet ride, if it is in good shape, drive it till the wheels fall off, I can't imagine going to a civic hybrid from the RSX for 8 mpg.

[SentraSE-R]

Mark has the dealer mentality wired. You'll be much better off selling your car on your own. The dealer wants to maximize profits, and they're not willing to deal right now.

If they don't want to sell the car for $2500 (or more) below their asking price, walk away. Call them in two months. If the car's still on the lot, offer them $500 less than you did before. Repeat as necessary. I've seen cars sit in dealer inventory for 9 months. By then the dealer should be willing to sell for considerably less than before. The big dealers will move used cars from, say, their Honda lot to their Toyota lot to their Mazda lot every couple of weeks to give them more exposure.

I agree with ChazInMT in a way, too. Unless you envision some major benefits from the switch, like you plan to get 60 mpg from the HCH, I'd enjoy the RSX until it dies. In the meantime, cars like the Cruze XFE and Elantra are coming out with 40+ mpg EPA hwy estimates, meaning a hypermiler can average >50 mpg out of them.

[endurance]

Like I started off with, I was curious about experiences with the HCH and bouncing the idea around. Driving down to the dealership was an excuse to go play on the highway other than my commute, which I quite enjoyed. I actually did my first experiments with drafting (behind a semi by about 4-5 car lengths) and saw some amazing MPGs (45-50 @ 65-75mph!). I lost nothing by testing the waters with the dealership and frankly, could live without the lecture. If it worked out, for $2k I'd be driving a car that I could easily drive normally at 45mpg and hypermile to 55-65mpg. It didn't work out. There's not another 5 speed HCH within 100 miles according to the three websites I use. Sure, I could let a dealer know what I want and they could track one down, but then I have even less bargaining power.

As far as why I'd be willing to give up the RSX, part of it is just boredom with a car I've been driving for five years and a change in interior scenery might be nice. Part of it is concerns over what is going to happen to gas prices over the next 2-3 years and in turn, what's going to happen to the resale value of the RSX and the value of used high mpg cars. Part of it is concerns over safety with driving with the engine off as well as wear and tear restarting at stop lights.

It's certainly not a need and I'm still considering just hanging on to what I have, but with some recent news that affects my income over the next couple years, I really doubt a new (not used) car is not in the cards anyway. I don't think I want to take on anything I can't pay cash for, so my budget is likely to remain sub-10k.