Why You Should Wait Until 2010 To Buy A New Car

[cfg83]

JohnnyGrey -

Originally Posted by JohnnyGrey

Thanks for that calculator, Arminius. It's a real time saver. I found out that to justify dumping my paid-for Cavalier for a new Corolla, I'd have to drive 245,000 miles per year! I suppose the calculator is geared towards immediate monthly cost as it doesn't take loan term length into consideration.

...

I'm having fun with the calculator too. If I switched from my old 35/45 MPG Saturn to a (used) 60/51 Honda Insight that I Hypermile "up" to 70/56 with $250/month payments, gas would have to reach $15 for it to pay for itself.

I'm gonna use this calculator when I talk to friends about this stuff.

CarloSW2

[JohnnyGrey]

Personally, I cringe more at the sight of a full minivan rolling down the street than a celebrity in a Prius.

Why? If the minivan is full, it's performing its intended duty and getting way more MPG per person than a single celebrity in a Prius.

[GenKreton]

Originally Posted by Arminius

I remember years ago (1989?) when the founder of a big computer company (Cray) was riding around in an old subcompact (I believe it was a Tercel), and he had a wrist watch taped to the dash because the car didn't come with a clock. That guy is a celebrity to me - and not just because he founded a big company.

Heh, that story is a bit close to home for me. My 1992 Corolla doesn't have a clock so there is an analog watch hanging from the mirror using a hippie bead necklace :P

[trebuchet03]

Add to that the fact that EVERYDAY I see those idiots passing me on the hwy doing 85mph, where is the savings there? I now cringe every time I see a prius fly by me doing at least 20mph over the speed limit ..

Meh - you're missing the point... Mr. Prius is likely still getting more mpg 20+ over than it's counterpart at the speed limit. Which, is the point - no compromise (or very little).

You're going to have one hell of a time changing people's minds... It's a lot easier to change the product

If some ass is going to do 20 over - I'd rather it happen in a Prius than in my car or just about any other car... My car just doesn't perform as well at that speed - I can't compete with that aero. Sure, they should slow down - if they were, you wouldn't have this gripe

Why? If the minivan is full, it's performing its intended duty and getting way more MPG per person than a single celebrity in a Prius.

A loaded minivan doesn't promote others to keep high occupancy in their minivans the way a celebrity promotes anything. I rarely see minivans or Prii with high occupancy anyway :/ It's a big If with respect to occupancy. In any case, Apples to apples, a fully loaded Prius (5) has a greater mpg per capita than a fully loaded minivan (7 - even 8).

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Actually it has been my observation, also, that Prius drivers generally drive like asses.

I totally believe you.. to be honest - and this has been my observation, drivers generally drive like asses weather or not they have a car that has the potential for higher mpg numbers Drivers just generally equal asses - I've had my moments just as everyone else has, I just have them very infrequently

[JohnnyGrey]

A loaded minivan doesn't promote others to keep high occupancy in their minivans the way a celebrity promotes anything. I rarely see minivans or Prii with high occupancy anyway :/ It's a big If with respect to occupancy. In any case, Apples to apples, a fully loaded Prius (5) has a greater mpg per capita than a fully loaded minivan (7 - even 8).

The way I read it, it seemed like you'd rather see a celebrity (one person) in a Prius than a full (7-8 people in a) minivan. I thought we were talking about actual efficiency rather than using star power to get a point across. How many people bought a Prius because Larry David drives one?

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by JohnnyGrey

The way I read it, it seemed like you'd rather see a celebrity (one person) in a Prius than a full (7-8 people in a) minivan. I thought we were talking about actual efficiency rather than using star power to get a point across. How many people bought a Prius because Larry David drives one?

You can read it however you want It's not really changing anything.... Here's the key points to take away from it:

I rarely see minivans or Prii with high occupancy anyway

Apples to apples, a fully loaded Prius (5) has a greater mpg per capita than a fully loaded minivan (7 - even 8).

What it should have seemed like is... I'd rather see the one person (even two) driving a Prius than one (or two) in a minivan... Because that's the reality of what's going on Hell, I even had a directly applicable corollary a few lines above

If some ass is going to do 20 over - I'd rather it happen in a Prius than in my car or just about any other car... My car just doesn't perform as well at that speed - I can't compete with that aero. Sure, they should slow down - if they were, you wouldn't have this gripe

And it's not one celebrity person - it's the celebrity. In a consumer whorish world - 10 seconds of time on whatever TV broadcast is freaking awesome from a promotional standpoint. I'm willing to bet more people have heard about a Prius than a Ford GT...

[LostCause]

Originally Posted by JohnnyGrey

Why? If the minivan is full, it's performing its intended duty and getting way more MPG per person than a single celebrity in a Prius.

A full minivan is worse because the baby-maker sitting in the driver's seat has polluted the world orders of magnitude worse than the single celebrity speeding in the Prius. If you think one new car is bad for the environment, 5 kids is absolute hell.

Pollution = f(population)

I'm just being an ass...

- LostCause

[Lazarus]

I lost track of what the OP was in this thread. I guess it to bash Prius and the people who by them. Good or bad Toyota went way out on a limb to make and sell the Prius when every one said it would not work. Well it did and they raised the bar as far as FE goes. The technology and battery advancement we are seeing now is due in great part because of the popularity of these cars.

For what ever reason people buy these cars it's probably a much better choice then what they were driving for both emissions and MPG and yes the Prius driver doing 85 would still be doing 85 but in something that got a lot less mileage.

[johnpr]

so out of curiosity, how much does the increased speed affect the mpg in a prius, in my transam (decent aero) i used to drive 90+mph and got around 24 mpg which is about the same as what i got at 65 (1 or 2 mpg less but to me thats not a big difference for the speed difference) but in comparison either of my boxes (jeeps) suffers greatly above certain speeds (55 for jeep 1 and 65 for jeep 2)