Vroom... what?

[drwex]

I'm finding myself disbelieving the (lack of) options here. So far I seem to have one choice: the VW Jetta Sportswagon at 30/42 MPG with bonus manual transmission.

This appears to be the only car that offers the shape and size I'm looking for. Toyota's offerings appear exceedingly lame. The Camry Hybrid rates 25/35 MPG - wtf? The RAV4 is worse.

ETA: Camry Hybrid is actually advertising 39/43 - my mistake. I blame their site design.

Kia's best little hatchback rates 24/36. The Honda Insight looks like the best option in hybrids right now. Subaru Forester is at 24/32 - if I'm going to keep with the same mileage I might as well get a car I know I like.

Also ETA: I really wish I could afford a Tesla. Of the all-electric vehicles this one has the best range and performance I could find. But $71k is a bit much.

One thing I've learned from this is that it might be a good time to get new - most dealers have loaded in their 2014 inventory and would very much like to be rid of any remaining 2013s. I will keep that in mind when I get to visiting dealers.

Comments

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

I'm confused, both Camry hybrids beat 40MPGs when i was looking at Toyotas

[marius23.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the 25/35 figure looks to be for the non-hybrid Camry: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2013_Toyota_Camry.shtml

[c1.livejournal.com]

Given what a new car payment costs, why is $3k in repairs a horrible thing? I don't have much experience with Subarus, but 125k miles seems quite young to give up on a car.

[drwex]

Because $3k represents only the immediate needs. There are other known problems, and given the central nature of these repairs (clutch and engine housing) it's likely there are other problems waiting to emerge.

Even assuming I did put the money into the repairs I would still be driving a car with lower mileage than I would like. But really it's the potentially open-ended nature of the costs that worries me.

[c1.livejournal.com]

I know that Toyotas and Subarus are two different cars, but my last car went well into the 200s, and I was counting on around $1500 in maintenance costs per year.
Question: did a dealer quote you that $3k, or a private shop? Something that really helped later in that car's life was having a private mechanic who was aggressive in cost containment, while optimizing lifespan -- saving money, while staying cognizant of "adding life to years, not just years to life."

[drwex]

Private mechanic. I got mad at the Subaru dealer years ago. I kept going for a while because it was literally walking distance from my office so I could just drop off the car. But I've been going to this mechanic off and on anyway so when I switched jobs I started going there for everything. I have talked with them and if I get both jobs done at once there's a small amount of labor overlap that might save me a couple hundred but he also said they could find more problems too.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

No useful advice here, just commiseration. When I was faced with what looked like was going to be a big repair cost for the Golf, I looked that new-car options, and I didn't find anything compelling. In the end I decided to to keep trying to drive the Golf into the ground. The repair costs since then have been pretty frequent but not large, but I don't know how to rationally decide when to stop paying for repairs and give up on the old car.

I am tempted to buy a new Golf. They are so pretty, and lead the pack in mileage. But I don't think I will. They are quite a bit more expensive than similarly-sized cars, and-- here's the kicker-- Volkswagens have a reputation for needing frequent repairs requiring expensive parts. (A well-deserved reputation, in my experience.)

Not to put you off from considering the VW. Your needs and options are very different from mine.

[drwex]

Thanks. I do plan to check out whatever I can find on repair costs - Consumer Reports or whatever.

Revision shock?

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

What year is your current car? If it is 2007 or older, part of what you are seeing is the MPG-revision of 2008. The 2007 Prius was rated 60/51 the old way... and 48/45 the new way, which is a truly shocking drop. And I could hit/exceed the old mpg on those. I just hope mfgs didn't start optimizing actual design for the new ratings system, at the expense of actual attainable mpg.

[drwex]

Yes, I'm aware that EPA made manufacturers report estimates that are closer to what actual drivers get.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Eh, ymmv. I never had an issue attaining the old mgp on any car I owned, and the few times I have tested newer cars, I've left the stickered mpg in the dust. I had reasonable trust in the old ratings; the new system is as useful as turtle tits for me.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

it's also the case that the mileage ratings lie like a rug -- my new one claims 31/40, and I haven't yet seen 30 mpg with about half city/half highway driving.

[marius23.livejournal.com]

What did you think of the Prius C?

[drwex]

C appears to stand for "cute" and "cramped". Not my style.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

I thought 2013 and 2014 were "one" "two" .. "five". Where does "C" come from?

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

you ruled out the Fit? It's a tardis, I swear. I'm about to go to the nursery for plants and 25 bags of mulch (helps if you like playing tetris). it was great mileage for a non hybrid when i got it (mid-30s) but 7 years later I understand expecting that things would have improved in the market in general. And it's not super vroomy compared to a turbo diesel. I'm about to hit 110k, am on my third set of tires, second set of brakes, and have had no major maintenance needed. oil changes average 5-7k miles depending on the conditions i drive in (there's a computerized maintenance minder). If I still lived in new england and had to navigate snowbanks frequently, I wouldn't like it so much. It's front wheel drive but lower to the ground than average.

[drwex]

I'll take a look at the Fit. The pictures on the Honda site don't show a lot but I'm sure a dealer will have some floor models I can poke around.

[imvfd.livejournal.com]

Egads. This post caused me to take a look at what the Yaris manual transmission mpg was... only to find out that those are no longer sold in the U.S. So what is it in Europe? Well, the regular "petrol" version is 41/56mpg. The diesel version? 49/67mpg. Argh! Disbelief is one reaction to this sort of situation.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Note that (most likely) Euro mpg are imperial gallons, so divide by ~1.2 to get at least some comparison. Whether the EU rates like current US standards or pre-2008 standards or something else, I haven't found in a fast dig.

[imvfd.livejournal.com]

Nope, this is in US gallons. Direct conversion from liters/100km

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

After a little digging, in the EU they are allowed to remove sideview mirrors, over-inflate tires, tape seams, and more to juice the results of fuel efficiency testing.

Also, it may be the computer controls push different air-fuel mixtures in EU and US configurations, although I am still looking for a second source for that.

[ringrose.livejournal.com]

We like our Honda Civic. Over the years it's grown in size to what the Accord used to be, and the non-hybrid has an excellent MPG. The hybrid is better, but gives up a fair amount of trunk space.

We found our friend's hybrid Camry's gas mileage unimpressive too.

[tshuma]

For what it's worth, we love our Jetta Sportwagen, although we got the TDI. We bought the model in year 2011, and it was absolutely the right choice. It replaced three other vehicles for us. We don't have kidlets to transport, but we regularly put four adults into it and a ton of luggage, and we moved two futons and a large arm chair at once in it.