I totaled my car, need to make a buying decision today HELP

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by kalifornia

does that include a new honda insight? I drove one and liked it

Any new asian plug in hybrid is going to lose value value about 3 times faster than you can pay it off for the first 3 or 4 years.
That's not even counting taxes (theft) and insurance.

[RedDevil]

The 3rd gen Insight is not a plugin? Just a regular hybrid.
Like the 4th gen Prius and the Ioniq it is very economical on gas. If your commute is 20 miles one way, why bother about going PHEV?

[oil pan 4]

I kind of like buying no gas for all shortish trips.
Gas is cheap. Now is the time to get one, all the useful idiots are focused on buying pickups and SUVs because that's what their friends, neighbors, Co workers are all buying.
No one cares about efficient cars.

[RedDevil]

A used Leaf would be an excellent choice. If $25K is the budget, you'd be able to swap the battery twice (which would very unlikely be necessary) and still be laughing.

[oil pan 4]

I got my ideal leaf (2011, chademo, light color, new battery, from up north, no rust, clean title) for less than $8,000 shipped from Illinois.
That leaves me with about $40,000 to spend on other stuff.

[samwichse]

Buying new is a sucker's game. Seriously. Off the lot depreciation is nuts.

At least but something "nearly new" with 10-20k on it.

[samwichse]

https://www.carmax.com/car/16425950

I mean seriously. CarMax is far from the cheapest place to buy a car, and there's a 3 year old Volt with 36k on it for $13.6k.

The base price on a new one is literally $20k MORE than that. Sure, there are tax incentives. But even with the max of everything, you're looking at $10k more. Is 36k miles worth $10k to your wife? That's not even shopping around, but going to the CarMaxPrice sure and searching for Volts in California.

You want something that saves money on gas? $10k will buy you 75k miles of gas for a v6 Accord ($3.50/gal, 26 mpg)... where's the economy there?

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by samwichse

https://www.carmax.com/car/16425950

I mean seriously. CarMax is far from the cheapest place to buy a car, and there's a 3 year old Volt with 36k on it for $13.6k.

The base price on a new one is literally $20k MORE than that. Sure, there are tax incentives. But even with the max of everything, you're looking at $10k more. Is 36k miles worth $10k to your wife? That's not even shopping around, but going to the CarMaxPrice sure and searching for Volts in California.

You want something that saves money on gas? $10k will buy you 75k miles of gas for a v6 Accord ($3.50/gal, 26 mpg)... where's the economy there?

For most people there don't appear to be any tax encouragement to buy used.
These economy hybrid cars suffer catastrophic depreciation.
I don't know about you but I am going to use that to my advantage. In 7 years my leaf lost about 85% of its MSRP and had 45,000 miles on it.

[redpoint5]

I never consider a new vehicle purchase... except now. In Oregon the potential is up to $12,500 in federal and state tax credits. If you can talk a dealer down to $30,000 on a new Bolt, your final cost after tax refund could be $17,500. It will be a while before you find a Bolt for sale at that price, and it doesn't suffer catastrophic battery degradation like the Leaf.

[oil pan 4]

The thing that kills the leaf battery is heat.
That is why I insisted on one from up north.
Our OP is "an hour north of San Francisco".
Should be cool enough for an air cooled battery car.
It's cool enough for the leaf here about 51 weeks out of the year.