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This is cool--it calculates the amount of time it takes to pay out by trading in a guzzler on a more fuel efficient car:
http://edmunds.com/calculators/gas-guzzler.html
I ran my GW and XJ through against a new Wrangler, Commander, and a Smart Car. It will never pay out--good to know!
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Ha, I'd need 461 months to break even on upgrading my 91 Civic to a
Prius before I started saving money. Man, the price of those things
have shot up, 28K now. My cousin got his for I think around 20, 2 years
ago when they needed a second car.
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According to that Calculator it will cost me $5.51 a month more is gas to drive a Prius instead of my Civic. That does not even include the 28k cost of the prius and the fact that my Civic is paid for.
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don't forget the ecological nightmare that comes with your prius too..
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Fact: My prius goes in the carpool lane with a single occupant
Fact: Most of what you hear about Prius is hype
Fact: most people get about 35mpg on a prius because they drive it like
a regular car.....
You don't have to drive it like a grandma, you just have to drive it
different...
Actually, you would be much better off going with me to a car auction
and getting a 5 year old car for $1500-$4000 depending if it is a chevy
or a Honda, and putting the extra 30,000 in the bank and dole out the
$30k +$3000 a year for registration and insurance out to the gas tank.
Dont forget that it will be another 15-20k for financing.
Since I predict gas will be between $3 and $2 a gallon within 6-12
months unless the Iranians attack Israel through Iraq. That is about
15,000 gallons of gas free for the next 5 years.
By then new fields will be open for business and the market will be
flooded with new sources.
Damn, they made me take all that stupid math for the engineering degree,
then they made me learn ROI (return on investment) and COC cost of
capital in my MBA program. It takes all the fun out of stupid economics
and junk environmental science.
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You must mean the blood and gore from the assholes who buy a prius and
think they are now authorized to drive in the fast lane at 50 and cause
lots of accidents by people having to pass on the right at a decent
speed?????
The Prius will do 100 comfortably...
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Car
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Fact: 1986 Honda CRX gets better MPG than a Prius with 1/10th the complexity.
Fact: When the Prius' battery pack goes out beyond warranty, the owner's MP$ will drop - significantly
Fact: How green is it to make and dispose of NiCD or NiMH or Lion batteries?
Fact: The diesel Ford Focus (European) gets 70mpg as is expected to come to the US now that we have LSD. Once again, less complexity, fewer $$ over the life of the car (battery packs - we all have laptops which have sucky battery lives after a year or two).
Fact: I'm a Chevy guy, not a Ford guy.
Fact: The 1987 Nissan Stanza Wagon I just picked up, including motor mounts and windshield, for $1800 gets between 32-35mpg in town. Great beater for running to town, football games, taking the kids to school, etc. And it's liability insurance only, so cheap all around.
Motorycle
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Fact: I get 42-44 mpg in town on my BMW R1100S. And I'm not trying to get good mpg.
I'm looking for the right 650CS - they get 60-70mpg
Fact: I get to use the carpool lanes
Fact: I get to lane split, sometimes shaving hours off my commute (at least 3x a year w/ holidays or snow days)
Fact: There are a lot of new/returning riders out there lately, and some are scaring me. Watch out for them please.
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Make sure you get your facts right....
Fact: 1986 Honda CRX gets better MPG than a Prius with 1/10th the complexity.
Under certain conditions with a driver who understand prius, the prius
can get 20-25mpg more then your CRX.
With a second battery under various conditions average mpg of 100mpg is
possible.
Most drivers of Prius are idiots who get 35mpg and dont understand why.
I drive about 80 or 85 on the freeway and usually get 44 or 45 mpg.
If I am driving around town or in stop and go traffic, I usually average
about 55 mpg.except in santa ana where the dumbass traffic engineers
have the lights all fubar so it is always an emergency stop..If I really
wanted to, I could get 55-70mpg doing 65 in the right lane.
Fact: When the Prius' battery pack goes out beyond warranty, the
owner's MP$ will drop - significantly
Fact: In California the traction battery is warrentied for 10 years or
150,000 miles. Which is longer then most cars last.
Fact Bob Wilson has mastered the art of taking two bad batteries
disassembling them, and putting them back together with all good cells.
Usually only one or two cells go bad, and this is not like a 12v lead
acid battery, but more like an RC car pack which is easily diassembled
and reassembled.
Fact In a couple of years, wrecked and broken Prius will be widely
available for parts.
Fact Prius is not as complicated as you think.....
no starter, no alternator, almost never get stranded due to dead 12v,
requires just enough 12v amps to power the computer to drive off.
Fact: How green is it to make and dispose of NiCD or NiMH or Lion
batteries?
No lead (lead very poisonous), no acid, not much bigger then the lead
acid 12v in your car.
Fact: The diesel Ford Focus (European) gets 70mpg as is expected to
come to the US now that we have LSD
We have had LSD in the United States for 50 or 60 years. Many people
love it, but it is highly illegal.
Diesel will have to pass smog, adding to the cost and complexity.
. Once again, less complexity, fewer $$ over the life of the car
(battery packs - we all have laptops which have sucky battery lives
after a year or two).
Fact: I'm a Chevy guy, not a Ford guy.
Fact: The 1987 Nissan Stanza Wagon I just picked up, including motor
mounts and windshield, for $1800 gets between 32-35mpg in town. Great
beater for running to town, football games, taking the kids to school,
etc. And it's liability insurance only, so cheap all around.
Fact: my 68 chevy 250 CID 6 clynder it was too big to be a car, it was a
boat got 24 mpg. It produced more horsepower then the chevy 350 of 71-73
due to smog crap. You could sit inside on either side of the motor, you
could fit several people in the trunk,,,,with the spare.
Motorycle
----
Fact: I get 42-44 mpg in town on my BMW R1100S. And I'm not trying to
get good mpg.
I'm looking for the right 650CS - they get 60-70mpg
Fact: I get to use the carpool lanes
Fact: I get to lane split, sometimes shaving hours off my commute (at
least 3x a year w/ holidays or snow days)
Fact: There are a lot of new/returning riders out there lately, and
some are scaring me. Watch out for them please.
It really makes me sick to my stomach when I see a man laying on the
freeway not moving with a motorcycle nearby. It is worse when I see a
motorcyclist under a Toyota on the freeway. I try to veer left while in
the carpool lane and I see a rider coming up on my right, some bastards
veer right instead. More then once I have almost taken out a
motorcyclist while changing lanes, never saw them (usually they are
passing on my right).
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Wouldn't it be nice to have high torque electric motor assist for short
periods of time while wheeling?
Forgot to mention....
NiMh does not like being discharged all the way, and your battery is
designed to last 2 years...so you buy a new laptop.
Whereas the Prius is carefully designed to properly maintain the
NiMH....when my battery reads "dead" it still has 40% life left...and
the computer will not allow the heavy draws that will shorted the life
of the battery. Of the people with Prius as old as 7 years, only one or
two have had issues with the battery and usually it is the dealer
misdiagnosing the problem...but people get a free new battery under
warranty or the grace of toyota (who have not charged any of the 4 or 5
people for a new battery).
As I mentioned, Bob explains well how to test the cells, and will help
anyone rebuild a Prius battery. And since it is not liquid, you can
easily ship them.
Bob had to look high and low for some bad batteries in order to test,
take them apart and ....
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I believe that My truck should be allowed to have a sticker allowing me into the carpool lane. Seeing as it runs on 100% renewable fuel.
coming this fall... VW Jetta wagon with a 2.0 diesel. Mileage in the 50's. and a base price under 20k? is that right?
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I think the stickers ran out about 2 years ago...it is good for another
18 months...
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I'm waiting to see who installs one of the Chevy's hybrid drive-trains into something. Someone with more disposable income than I have. :)
The electro-YJ idea gave way to the JeepSpeed truck. It's sold (and was even more fun than I thought it would be) Now I'm hunting for the next project, and it may go electric if I can get over my battery jitters. I have the motor, controller, battery pack picked out, just not sure what to put it in. $7-14K is a big investment for batteries for an all-electro vehicle (with a hard-mounted 220V generator methinks. I already have it in the garage) and the battery packs don't last forever. Battery life and replacement cost is my biggest concern. Lead acids go about 4-7 years from what I've been reading.
Hey, if the Hybrids treat their batteries better than my laptops, cell phones, and all my other NiCd, NiMH, and LiOn devices, boo on the rest of the mfgrs in the whole world who deliver rechargeable devices.
Color me skeptical for some reason...
> In California the traction battery is warrantied for 10 years or
> 150,000 miles. Which is longer then most cars last.
Wow. Anyone here have more miles than that on their XJs? More than double? You know who you are. :)
I'm far from the world's easiest driver. And the last 3 Suburbans I've had were all over 250K miles (one had more off-road miles than a mall parking lot full of SUVs). All of these on the same motor, even the same timing chain. :) True, the '93 'Burb needed an automatic trans at 176K - after a day of breaking trail in knee-deep snow. >:-> Still got me home, just whined and slipped some in R.
The 10 year warranty has what for it to kick in? MPG goes below some #, or it doesn't work at all (prolly), the triangle comes on (yep), or ??? I haven't been able to find the text, but more than a few people found out the hard way what constitutes abuse. Like this guy:
"If you do not use the vehicle for a long time (2 weeks or more), the hybrid vehicle battery and auxiliary battery will discharge and their condition is liable to decline. Therefore, in order to make up for discharging, charge them once in every two weeks for about 30 minutes by starting the hybrid system with all electrical components turned off."
There's an Aussie site where the fellow's been doing a lot with his Prius, including a turbo and melting down a battery pack. Lots of other cool ideas for increasing economy on standard vehicles too, and they trail you along through their trial and error, so it's edumacational.
http://autospeed.com/cms/A_2658/article.html
And I know 4 Prius owners who would want your 65mpg trick, so share away. None of them are getting over 45 in general in SoCal driving, and only 2 of them do 80.
Re this:
> More then once I have almost taken out a
> motorcyclist while changing lanes, never saw them (usually they are
> passing on my right).
Lane sharing is generally kept to the leftmost 2 lanes. So if you're in either of the 2 left lanes, you will definitely be getting passed on the right by bikes (on both sides if you're in the 2nd lane from the left).
The HOV lane is not counted as a "left lane", and you will be passed on the right in that lane too.
If you've had more than a couple incidents where you can't see a bike coming up on you (vs the idiots who ride in your blind spot for miles), all I can tell you is to properly adjust your mirrors to make the blind spot as small as possible and to turn your head and actually look for a motorcycle (car, semi, etc.) before you change lanes. We don't magically appear. Honest.
http://www.smartmotorist.com/car-access … ectly.html
I am, of course, assuming you're signaling before you move instead of after you're coming over. That's a common theme I see - move, then signal. Oops.
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First off - I dont count passing me on the right while I am in carpool
as passing on right.
I always try to edge over to let the motorcyclist through.
For every motorcyclist I got close to getting in and out of the carpool
lane.
There were dozens whom I almost hit doing a lane change in normal
traffic lanes. I like loud bikes, I can hear them when I want to do a
lane change so I look more.
I don't count the crash where I was making a left turn after the cars
passed and a racing, blacked out (burned out headlight) motorcycle T
Boned me, he was doing in excess of 80mph without a headlight at night
in a 40mph zone. Made no attempt to avoid my van. He was just being
insane and it nearly cost him his life, my van ironically saved his life.
2nd
You can convert a car to electric for under $10k if you buy the online
kit. If you are innovative and look around I bet you can find many parts
as good or better for less. For instance, the electric motors are
probably available used.
You can get lesser battery packs (which affect range and maybe life) for
$700-$800.
3rd
Not boo on manufacturers. Like with our jeeps everything is a tradeoff,
cost, power, range, lifespan, ride, stupidity factor.
NiMH, do you think laptop manufactures want the laptop to shut down at
40% power, or do the consumer and manufacturer want it to last as long
as possible.
As battery is secondary power source for Prius they can keep it charged
and above 40% charge, and control the drain from the cells. So you can
computer manage the cells for maximum life. Which you dont want to do in
a laptop.
AND, if you want someone to buy a new laptop every 2-3 years, design the
battery drain so the battery will last 3 years.
In computer engineering school, when we were on specs, we learned HEAT
KILLS. So with the IC's you put 2ma through the circuit it is Mil Spec,
10mA it might be commercial spec for a car or plane, 20mA for a
commercial unit such as a home phone or clock radio, and 50mA for a toy
you want to last at least 6 months.
With batteries, same basic concept applies. With NiMH how far you run it
down
Like my son killed all my 18v NIMH tool batteries because he didn't
believe in charging them.
I always charged them so they would last for a very long time. It starts
running slow, I would swap batteries. And I would let them cool after
charging.
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I was thinking that now is perhaps a good time to trade in the Mustang for a Rubicon. According to the fine prints the jeep's 2.99 gas card deal was not valid for the Wranglers anyways.
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It's only good for 12K miles/year.
Assuming 10mpg at $4/gallon, that's $1200, or $100 a month.
Anyone know if the diesels will ever get CA-legalized?
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buy it in another state.....then bring it here a few months later....
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Need 17K miles on it IIRC, so will take more than a couple months for most...
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It's 7500:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/fa … ffvr29.htm
What Is Considered a New Vehicle?
California law considers any vehicle with less than 7,500 miles on the odometer when acquired by a California resident or business to be a new vehicle. This holds true whether or not the vehicle has been registered in another state. If you acquire a new vehicle from another state, you may not subsequently drive it to accumulate over 7,500 miles to circumvent the law. DMV cannot accept an application to register the vehicle, and you cannot register or operate the vehicle in California.
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When I was looking for a VW TDI a few years ago I came across a shop somewhere off the 91 that had people in Arizona and other places that would buy the new TDIs, drive them for 7500 miles and then sell them to this shop so they could sell an almost new TDI in California. Starting in 2009 (I think) the new VW diesels will be 50 state legal.
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The base price is right about 20K. But dealers are getting $2500 over
sticker for them now... and they won't even get delivered until September.
If I was going to get a new vehicle, I would probably get the VW Jetta
TDI.
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base price for what is $2500 over sticker....
I hate car stealerships
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Jeep J8
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get a friend who is half blind and cant tell the difference between a 7
and a 1 to go read the mileage :)
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Did you ask them what they were smokin'? cause it'd be great
to get the guys I play poker with to hit that pipe.
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