Now that we have a baby, we decided it would be best to be a 2 car family again (I would have liked to try to get by using bikes and/or ebikes, but "happy wife, happy life" and that...). Didn't want to spend too much, preferably no loan (ended up paying with cash
), newish/safe/reliable, and of course, decent mileage.
The result is a 2007 Camry Hybrid with 202k miles for $3600 out the door. Battery was just replaced with a refurbished one, crossing my fingers that I won't have to go digging in it any time soon. Exterior is in kinda sad shape, but the interior and mechanicals are pretty good, especially for the miles. Only immediate need is rear tires.
MPGs from the drive home are promising. Got 46.4MPG according to the MFD over the ~100 miles to home doing 70ish most of the way. For comparison, our Prius showed 50MPG for the tank when we started for home and was 54MPG when we arrived, so it got probably 56 for that trip (Prius' MFD usually reads 2MPG higher than the calculating at fill up). Not a bad trade off when you consider the extra room, power, and comfort the Camry offers.
So far, I would highly recommend the Camry Hybrid for those looking for a cheap car with close to Prius efficiency, but without the meh looks.