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Old 05-02-2012, 09:06 PM   #29 (permalink)
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I lived right at Tyson's Corner and worked at American Service Center, 585 North Glebe Rd in Arlington in 1984, Mercedes and Ferrari dealer. I drove my 84 CRX 1.5 into work on route 123, Chain Bridge Road, and averaged 44 MPG in the CRX. I could come very close to that today in the Fiesta but I have no desire to live anywhere near DC. Tidewater is bad enough, but the wife refuses to live to far from a Wal Mart. If it was up to me I would live in the boonies.

There was a 2001 Prius with a bad hybrid battery (not operational) in the DC area for sale last fall, stayed on Craigslist for quite a while at an asking price of just over $2k. When the warranty on the hybrid battery ends most people are not really interested in the hybrids anymore. Recent gas prices have driven the prices of all economy cars up. Remember the Metro on ebay that sold for $8000 back in 2008 when gas got close to $4 a gallon last time. I think that was close to what it sold for new, and you will never see a 12-15 year old hybrid go for that kind of money.

Cars loaded with options are nice when they are new, but when you have window regulators costing $400 to replace, many cars die from "option death" when mechanically they are still in fairly good shape.

Look at the price of a 2000-05 Echo stripper compared to the Prius from the same year. The Echo is worth more until you get past 2003.

regards
Mech
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