Quote:
Originally Posted by Gearhead Jim
I'm pleasently surprised that no one has chastised you for the "false economy" of buying a relatively expensive economy car and spending more money on accessories and customization, just to save "a few dollars" in gas money. Hey, it's your car and your money, and you're happy. Can't get much better than that. Enjoy!
If I lived in The Islands, I'd probably do something similar.
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Au contraire, but the chastising usually stops when they get their test drive.
The windshield screen is required for Hawaii sunshine and a lot cheaper than tinting, while those cheap Toyota design engineers "forgot" to put the rubber on top of the rear bumper. (They must not use teenagers to test their cars.) Neither of those affects gas mileage.
Most of the rest of the site's accessories don't improve mileage either, with the possible exception of the warranty-voiding EV button and the SCANgauge real-time monitoring of the car's data bus. I don't plan to do any of those... I like a warranty and this car's LCD display is already distracting enough. But the plethora of products reminds me of the enthusiasm reserved for VW Beetles, deuce coupes, and Harleys.
There's a noticeable "Prius effect" on driving effort. When you're getting 19 mpg in a Ford Taurus, everyone thinks you're nuts for trying to raise your mileage by one or two MPG on a loser gas hog-- despite the fact that it's a 5-10% improvement. Yet just about every Prius driver enjoys their 45 mpg performance and goes nuts trying to reach 46 mpg-- a 2% return. I drive that car even more lightly than the Taurus. Ignorance is bliss, but when the LCD display shows you where the power is going you can't help yourself.
I've had my eye on these cars since 2001 but we had no reason to buy until our kid came up with her own idea. Since 2000, when she turned eight, she's had a portion of her allowance diverted into a "Kid 401(k)", with generous employer matching and tax deferral yet also with incredibly low expenses at "Mom & Dad's Brokerage".* The deal was that she'd get the money at age 16 (a lifetime away for an eight-year-old, just like retirement is for a 20-something) to buy herself a car. We expected that she'd have a few thousand bucks for an island bomb, but Berkshire Hathaway (her chosen investment) did her proud and coughed up $5000.
About six months ago she noted $3.50/gallon gas with alarm and started looking at high-mpg cars. Then she proposed that instead of buying her own car (or leaving her money to compound) she'd rather own a share of a family car and sell the share back when she went to a Mainland college. (Most Hawaii kid's don't take their island cars to college.) We talked about expenses (and depreciation) and she settled on a Prius or a Civic. Then she read that the Civic hybrid's rear seat doesn't fold down for longboard storage, and now she owns 23% of the Prius. She also gets first dibs on its use if she pays for the gas, which is going to be pretty light on her wallet. When she goes to college in 2010 she'll probably get back $4000.
I'm doing everything I can to encourage our little engineer-in-training, starting next week with her first oil change.
Finally, there's the long-term payback of owning a car for a decade (or more) and converting it to a plugin. The math isn't so good going from 19 mpg to 45 mpg but it's pretty compelling going from $5/gal gas to free photovoltaic, even if I have to buy fuel stabilizer for the gas tank every year... at this point the average chastiser's eyes start to glaze over.
Most people will get a much bigger payback from cutting their energy use (and their spending) in other ways. We've already gone through those processes and this is the only area not subject to diminishing returns.
It's nice to feel happy, too!
*This and other kid-money ideas were plagiarized from David Owen's "First National Bank of Dad".