trading in for.....
 

Not that I am planning on doing so soon, but I commute 156 miles a day for work. Currently I'm using my only means of transportation. 2004 Toyota Tacoma PreRunner regular cab. I bought a UG and I am getting 26 mpg. That is still $30 a day in gas.
KBB.com has my trade in value at $9200. What options are out there in the range as a straight up equal swap. I am a mechanic at firestone and have seen lots of cars come in and out but I am really more comfortable around Japanese cars, so I would be leaning more towards them.
Also as more of a near term solution what could I do to improve this trucks mpg? It has a 2.7L four cylinder with a 4 speed auto and 4.30:1 axle.

I think you should go home for lunch too. Gas is $5 in Cali now? :eek:

$3.75 last week and $3.99 this week. verys week to week but always $3.60 to $4.00. Gotten so use to it that I don't even blink at the price anymore, neither does anyone else apparently as I am passed by everyone traveling well over 75mph! I stay at 65 mph. If I go any slower it would take all day to get to work and I would get run over by all the traffic.

For KBB of your truck, you could get a Toyota Prius (45-50mpg) that is a few years old, a first generation Honda Insight (60-70mpg), an almost brand new Toyota Yaris two door hatch back.

If you could plug in at work you could even take that $9k and put a decent down payment down on a brand new Nissan Leaf, your commute is long enough that you would have to charge at work for sure, but you would be paying $.02-$.03 per mile instead of around $.14 per mile leaving you with about $300 extra in your pocket at the end of the month for car payment.

Power Search is a great tool for finding vehicles that fit your needs and get the gas mileage you want.

My dream : an insight 1, preferably a manual one. It's old enough so you can get one at 3-5000$ and you may double your FE, ie 2500-3000$ saved/year. As you are driving mainly on highway you can get one with a dead battery as metroMPG did.

At this rate you may keep your Tacoma as the second car when needed (cargo and/or 3+seats) with the lowest insurance.

Denis.

I have worked on several Prius. There was one that I remember well cause she had 228K miles on it with the original batteries. Engine sounded bad however....
I see a few Leafs around but it's out of the question for me as my one way is 78 miles and there is nowhere to plug it in while at work.
Insights are a plenty here as well but have not seen a single one for sale......
I really really love my Tacoma. By far the best vehicle I have ever bought.
There is a 97 Honda Accord left at the shop by the owner. He hit a curb pretty bad on the driverside front axle and can not afford to have it repaired. I could fix it for myself but it has over 200K on it already and the EPA shows that it only gets 27 MPG or so which just isn't worth putting the time and money into.

Vee-dub TDI would be an attractive option if most of your commute is freeway.

A used Fit (auto trans) would be another option that is much more Japanese. And you can likely get that for less than your budget. It's a little wagon, so it can haul a half-decent amount of stuff as well. The manuals are not as good as the autos for FE because the gearing in the manual trans is shorter than that of the auto. (WHY, HONDA, WHY???!!)

For new cars, there are several Hyundais that are EPA rated at 40 MPG on the freeway test. Pretty decent numbers, there. They're Korean, not Japanese, but I'm guessing there isn't a huge amount of difference at this point.

-soD

I like the fit. Hadn't seen any in my shop however. So haven't had a chance to drive one or anything. The Hyundais are good looking cars but I lost count how many I've seen come in to the shop with both caster or camber way out of spec and with less than 10,000 miles on them. Not sure what is up with these cars being out of alignment so quick? Even the ones that are 5 years old or so!
I'm starting to lean towards the Prius or Yarius.