have you guys bought any hybrid vehicles? People like Prius, toyota camry hybrid, honda civic hybrid, they are selling like hot cakes. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

We have a 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid, plus a 99 Mercedes Turbodiesel. The former consistently gets 27-30 mpg around town, and we really like it. The latter consistently gets 30-33 mpg on the highway (even at over 110,000 miles on the odometer), and can run on veggie oil eventually if we decide to go that way. It's also a great performer with the turbo...accellerates like crazy, doesn't lose power up in the mountains.

We're really happy with both cars. Especially these days...

I have a Harley. It gets 40 MPG.

Hybrids still pose serious difficulties for emergency personnel.

We just got a honda civic hybrid I'm a little disapointed it doesn't get the 53 highway that it bosted. However I guess I can live with 37/43; it did get 50+ once but I think there was a tail wind. Overall I like it alot.

I'd be dissapointed too if a hybrid I bought didn't get a least 50mpg. The Honda CRX-HF was able to do 50MPG with just an ordinary gasoline motor, and that was well over 20 years ago. Today, if I can't get at least 50MPG, I see no great reward for paying that extra premium that gets the newer, and yet to be proven reliable, technology.
***Rant*** Come on, it's been over 20 years already since the arrival of the CRX. Why don't we have more 50MPG+ cars by now, that aren't little sh*tboxes?

I'm not opposed to the hybrid technology, I believe it's a step in the right direction. I just don't want to be the guinea pig. I want at least 5 years of data before I'd consider buying one. I'd like to know if they are capable of aging gracefully; because, I keep my cars until the bitter end. I'd like to know what happens if my drivesystem battery dies outside of warranty. Do I have to shell out the $3000+ to replace it? Geese, for that much money--I could have a brand new motor put in a conventional gasoline car. And even a hybrid still has a gasoline motor that I have to worry about, in addition to the electric motor and the expensive battery.

Not trying to hi-jack this thread with a rant, I'm just voicing why I haven't bought one yet. I do take great interest in reading other peoples experiences with the new technology. And I hope to see more enlightening posts from more actual owners of hybrids.

I have to agree with Ghostbear on this. The hybrid technology has not been proven in long term use. And those of us that don't buy new vehicles, this is a major concern. I do not buy a vehicle until it is at least 4 years old, and then drive it until the wheels fall off. Hybrids don't have a long enough track record for me to consider it.
Twenty years ago i almost bought a brand new CRX that would get nearly 50 mpg, but after looking at the cost of the new vehicle and all that goes with it i went with a used Corvette. For the difference in price i was able to pour alot of money into the gas tank.
When you buy one be sure you post pictures and show off your new ride.

I agree with Ghostbear. I too buy vehicles and hold onto them until they die, or my beloved wife totals them (she's wrecked two; fortunately, each was 10+ yrs old).

The MPG reports appear to be disappointing, but that seems to be true for any vehicle because the EPA (or DOT) tests the vehicles under artificial conditions. I'd like to see how they hold up past their warranty. Also, I'm concerned about the disposal of the battery units. Would there be an extra charge to dispose of them instead of using the local landfill. Also, the Dallas temperature extremes tends to kill batteries at an earlier age.

We get the EPA rating on both ours easily so their test seems to be accurate to me.
I too am disapointed by the small gains from the hybrids, I just sold my old 1988 Chevy S10 4x4 which would hit 27mpg because I needed something with a larger cab to hold a baby seat, why are the vehicles to today not getting 2-3 times the milage as vehilces almost 20 years old. To get that kind of milage I now would have to have a unibody front wheel drive.

If you don't buy a car under four years old, you'll probably never buy a hybrid. They've been out in the US now for six years, the Prius and hybrid Civic both came onto the US market for the 2001 model year, and there are almost none listed in any of the used car guides. The ones that are have salvage histories.

Oh, and both have been available in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong for a a few years longer, figure them to be about 8 or 9. So for the people who want five years of experince, it's there.

I've known three Priuses (Priusi?). Two were from the first year they were in the States, one was bought replace the one that was in accident three years later. In that accident, it ate a lot of gaurdrail after finding black ice on the highway, and the only thing the driver had to show for it was the air bag skinned the tip of his nose. I've seen few other things that are as tough, and most of those have treads.

All three have logs for them that were maintained by the drivers, and all three averaged just over 50mpg. Keep in mind, there is a lot of "down" around here, and the recursive breaking that the Prius has gets put to good use. For those who aren't familiar with it, keep in mind that if you turn something with electrity, you have a motor; if you turn the thing, that motor turns into a generator. The Prius' batteries are charging when most of are coasting down a long hill in idle.

The other thing to keep in mind is that a true hybrid, which is not the same as an electric car with an onboard generator, really doesn't have much of an edge in highway driving becuase the engine is running almost always. In urban usage, the engine runs as needed and the electric motors, which are fine under 40, are at their most efficent. If you buy a hybrid and expect to stomp something like a Civic or a motorcycle in highway mpg, you aren't going to.

Hybrids aren't magic. The basic principles are all electromechanical engineering. The real trick has been waiting on the batteries to catch up. (I understand that Honda's aren't as good as that used by Toyota, which supplies them to Ford.)

However, if you have a hybrid that is getting in the low 40s for mpg, you have a problem. It needs to go into a dealship and it needs to be looked at. You might have bad motors (even if your engine is fine), or the battery pack is screwed up. Those are the only humbugs to the hybrids. The batterypack is a fairly green one, but it's expensive, and on the first generation Priusi(?) they were only rated for about ten years. I have no idea about the current ones, they changed the battery pack when they redesigned the frame, nor do I know about the Hondas.

The one really big hesitation to them that I have is the one Malpaso raised. That's why a lot of hybrids around here have stickers in the windows telling emergency crews where the safe-cut spot that isolates the batterypack is. And if an agency doesn't have that info, I'm not terribly sympathetic- if you asked a dealer and they didn't give it to you, they are are deep trouble when you contact the manufacturer for it. There is one Honda dealer that I know of that didn't want to share that information with the local fire departments, so the FDs contacted Honda. Guess which dealer is at the end of the line when it comes to anything in great demand, and is feeling the pinch? *nasty grin*

Picard, as you might have guessed from my previous post, I don't own a Prius, but I know them pretty well.

If you are expecting to have a lot of stop and go, they are great. A little disconcerting though- they "turn off" when you stop in town driving. Or sometimes while you are still going, and you still have power. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

If you need torque for hauling or need to go off road, they aren't so good. I know that there was a limited number of hybrid Silverados made, or at least planned, back around '03. They were quite a bit heavier- they were designed to be used as part of a fleet, becuase they had an inverter running off the battery pack. The theory was that contractors would buy one, use it as thier power base and to haul low mass-high bulk gear, while using more conventional trucks for most duty. I don't know if anything came of that.

If you need to do a lot of highway driving, they are nice. A/C doesn't phase the milage. But they don't shine outstandingly in compairison to other high milage vehicles in this role. For the cost, the advantages if a hybrid is run almost exclusively at full highway speeds. If your highway looks like the Southern California sterotype, sure, a hybrid will do better, but if you can get out and move on a straight, flat length of road, the advantages are less.

For the cost, flip a coin and call if you are doing 60%+ on a real highway. If you have stop and go for over 60% of your day, and you don't need to leave the blacktop or fill the trunk up with metal, the hybrid is more fuel efficent.

If you are looking at pure, monitary cost savings, in the long run, it works out even, even in the role that hybrids excell in. However, if you want to cut down on the amount of crap you are throwing into the the air and want to use less of a finite resource, hybrids are the have the edge. It all maters what kind of green you want to save. Me, I consider the planet being in good shape to be part of being equipped. But what do I know?