My answer to Todd will qualify as investment decisions in hard times I think. This is a very pertinent topic given our current verge of recession and you are correct Redflare this might be more appropriate for a new thread.

Being green is hip right now but honestly the green of money is more what we were concerned with. Unless your vehicle generates income or entertainment (boating/hiking) to outweigh its cost it makes for a very poor investment that depreciates over time even with consistent investment of maintenance money. We also saw that our costs for the car were increasing (with fuel and such) outweighing our "need".