Backwards with today's gas prices? Maybe.

[GLC1968]

We like to do things a little backwards, I guess.

My husband and I are listing our 2005 Prius for sale tomorrow. Tonight, we are going to look at a 1987 Dodge Dakota to buy.

How many people do you know who are selling a hybrid and buying a gas guzzler? :p:D:cool:

Considering that most of our travel is by bike - we aren't as crazy as we sound. We are selling the Prius for almost more than what we paid for it 8 months ago. We are buying the truck (if it's in good working order) for dirt cheap and paying cash. The truck will sit in the driveway until we need it to haul stuff or for an emergency vehicle. The Prius sale will get us out from what we owe on it AND what we owe on the Toyota Matrix that we are keeping.

Can't beat that, huh?

Anyone wanna buy a Prius? ;)

[7rider]

Meh...your bikes get better mileage than any Prius. Can't haul lumber and sheetrock and topsoil (very well) in a Prius.

A woman who works upstairs from me sold her Prius and bought a Rav4.
I'm scratching my head on that one. She is NOT a bike commuter in any way, shape, or form!

[smilingcat]

Here is an interesting way to look at the problem.

Lets take two cars for simplicity. car A gets very good gas milage. car B (being a truck) gets lousy gas milage. But if car B is much much cheaper to buy, which one makes more sense??

If you didn't drive the car at all, car B makes more sense. you save the difference. And car B is cheaper.

The simple answer is the difference is cost is the amount of extra gas you could buy for car B. If car B costs $4,000 cheaper, then you can buy almost 1000 gallon of extra gas (gas at $4.00/gallon).

And how does this translate to the breakeven point between the two cars?

lets just say, car A gets 35 miles to the gallon and car B gets 20 miles to the gallon and let "X" be the gallons of gas used by car A simple algebra says:
35*X = 20* (X+ 1000) is the total milage driven by the two cars. and it should be the same X= 1333.3 gallons.

At 1333.3 gallons of gas consumed, car A logged 46,665.5 miles at a gas cost of $5,333.2 While, Car B consumed 2333.3 gallons and logged 46,666.6 miles at a gas cost of $9,333.2 difference is the $4,000.

so you would need to log 46,666 miles for car A to be cheaper.

makes sense??
It's about as simple as I can get.

Anyway, have fun.
Smilingcat

Now trying to make sense of Wachovia stock prices?? loses $8 Billion and their stock jumped over 25% ???? I do understand but but but.... anyay another topic.

[mimitabby]

yes but, if gas goes up to $7.00 a gallon by next year, what does that do to your math?

GLC, what you are doing makes sense. We're not about to sell our Ford PU, but we don't drive it very often either! When we NEED it, it's there though.
And a full sized pickup comes in handy for a lot of different things.

[SadieKate]

You also have to look at mileage per person. We don't drive much either any longer, but three days last week day we hauled 4-5 people and bikes around in our Isuzu Trooper - can't do that with a Prius.

One trip was a drop run from up high on the mountain so we bought lunch for the nice young man next door lunch in return for driving our car back down and for entertaining us on the drive. With smaller cars, it would have taken two cars to get us up there and then another round trip to retrieve one of the cars (since the nice young man could only have shuttled down one of the two).

[Blueberry]

We need to keep my Element for hauling gear. I can't think of many other cars that can take 2 kayaks on the roof, 2 bikes on the trunk, and have room for a 112 lb dog and a week's worth of stuff inside... Of course, I don't drive it every day, either:)

CA

[tulip]

When I was car shopping a few years ago, I did the calculations about the Prius and determined that gas would have to be $10/gallon to justify the price of the Prius over the other cars I was looking at (Matrix, Corolla, Rabbit, etc.). I ended up with the Rabbit and I'm very happy with it.

BTW, I really didn't like driving the Prius because of the very small and narrow viewshed in the rear due to the slanted rear window and the big blind spots.

I wouldn't mind having a small pickup truck, though. There's no Zipcar here like there is in DC, the last place I lived. Having access to the Zipcars and trucks was really wonderful.

[smilingcat]

yes but, if gas goes up to $7.00 a gallon by next year, what does that do to your math?

GLC, what you are doing makes sense. We're not about to sell our Ford PU, but we don't drive it very often either! When we NEED it, it's there though.
And a full sized pickup comes in handy for a lot of different things.

:lol: higher the gas price, the break even point for the milage diminshes.
I guess we will reach that point ($7.00/gallon) and exceed it pretty soon.

BTW at $7.00/gallon with 35 MPG and 20MPG and $4000 I think you already know the answer at 26,666.7 miles. Still, if you use it on rare occasion, its a better bet with the truck.

I thought I was agreeing with GLC's comment.

Smilingcat

[GLC1968]

Oh yeah, we've done all the math. We did that when deciding between the Matrix and the Prius (which one to sell). The funny thing is, the deciding factor was the incredibly inflated value of a Prius right now. We are potentially going to MAKE money on this car. Talk about a screwed up economy!!

I do like my Prius though. It's no MINI, but it's a nice car, it drives well and it's comfortable. Eh... I like my bike even more! ;)