Buying a Hybrid Car (1 Viewer)

[Ed Moxley]

Ok.........
See for yourself, here: http://www.caranddriver.com/features...g-edition.html
See page 2 also. These were very easy to find, but I guess you'd rather not look, and say I'm telling untruths. I'm out of this thread. Just do your research Brian. I'm sure you'll be happy with whatever you get.

 

[Henry Gale]

Ed,
Sorry you had to leave.
My reading comprehension rate is pretty high, so, when you wrote, "consumer reviews" I took that literally.
But, now you've linked me to the professional driver reviews.
I read those too.
I understand how jaded and cool they are.
They're just not Prius owners.

 

[Ed Moxley]

Ok, last post in this thread for me...........
I didn't see, and still don't see anywhere that it says they are professional drivers. I took them as being consumers, thinking of buying the car, until they test drove them. Or was given them as company vehicles, and didn't care for them that much. Rereading the last one, I can see how that could be talking about pro driver, instead of company car for executive or salesman.

If they all are pro drivers, that just nails down the drawbacks even more.
As long as you like yours, is all that matters.............

 

[Henry Gale]

Do have to do all the work here?

Mike Dushane
Executive Editor, CARandDRIVER.com and Transportation Websites

Dave VanderWerp
Deputy Editor, CARandDRIVER.com

Thomas Adams
Video Production Editor, CARandDRIVER.com

 

[ChristopherG]

it appears that the one drawback of owning a Prius might be the affect on one's personality....

 

[Henry Gale]

Ziiiinnnng


Always being right is a terrible burden.

 

[ChristopherG]

Henry,

Thanks for a good laugh, you bear the burden well.

Chris

 

[Steve Schaffer]

All I tried to do is get across the fact that from my observations as a Toyota technician the Prius and other Toyota hybrids are fully ready-for-prime-time vehicles that are fully as useful and reliable as any non-hybrid model. You don't have to hunt for diesel or bio-diesel fuel, you just fill it up with decent standard grade unleaded gas and go for it.

I don't own one myself and probably wouldn't as my tastes in automobiles run more toward manual transmission sporty sedans.

Car and Driver, as well as most of the other "buff books" have a similar bias towards sportiness in automobiles and hence their faithful readers tend to reflect that bias. Try reading reviews on CU's website or doing a little lurking in the Prius forums at Edmunds.com.

I know I lost some of ya with my reference to the old Buick Dynaflow transmission. It basically consisted of a high stall-speed torque converter with a two speed planetary gearbox. High stall speed refers to a "loose" torque converter--one that allows the engine to rev up to a comparatively high rpm (usually right aroung the engine's max torque peak rpm--about 2200 rpm in those old Buick straight-eights) and let the car catch up. This eliminated the need for any actual gear shifting in normal acceleration--it was essentially a one-speed trans and thus didn't shift at all in most driving.

There was a lower gear ratio available either by manually selecting "Low" with the gear selector or via an automatic downshift if the accelerator was floored.

The result was that when starting from a stop, the engine revved to a relatively leisurely 2200 rpm and stayed there until the car "caught up". These engines had tremendous low end torque (some were actually used to power the big buses in Yosemite National Park back in the 50s and 60s) so acceleration was actually quite good, but eerily quiet and smooth. Fuel economy was not the best due to the loose torque converter but 100 octane fuel was only $.27 a gallon.

GM used a high stall speed torque converter in their 3 speed automatics used in mid-size and small sedans like the Lumina, Grand Prix, and Cavaliers in the late 80s thru early 90s. These offered great off the line acceleration due to the high torque multiplication from the high stall speed converter, but they did start in 1st and shift up thru the gears. A lockup torque converter eliminated the slip during cruise, and the lockup actually felt like it was shifting into a 4th gear even though it was only a 3 speed trans. Concurrently they also offered true 4 speed autos in the mid-size models but these were unreliable in the first few years.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Then google debunking articles. That editorial about the Hummer being more environmentally friendly than the Prius is complete bunk.

The gasoline part of your hybrid will be fine with the Sta-Bil ritual you use. I don't know about the batteries, I think you will probably shorten their operational life as measured by total charges, perhaps only by a little.

I have no idea where you got you arbitrary 100 degree radiator warm-up regimen, but it accomlpishes nothing good. Idling is perhaps the worst thing you can do for your engine, and all engines warm up much more effectively and efficiently under load than at idle. All you're doing with your regimen is wearing out your engine faster and burning extra gas. Start 'er up and go.

 

[drobbins]

First, my apologies to Brian Collins, Sorry about your thread :frowning: .

I guess I made some mistaken assumptions.

• I thought information from Car & Driver was somewhat reliable.
• I have seen other articles about hybrid cars that also raise some concerns about the enviromental and chemicals used in the batteries and how they are made and disposed of.
• I thought that the HTF was a friendly place where topics could be discussed and debated for informational reasons. If we Googled everything, there would be no use for the After Hours Lounge.

My original statement in no way attacked hybrid cars and I did not say they were either good or bad. I was just making the statement that much research should be done before buying. Once again "I don't know how much hype there is on both sides" and I thought this would be a good place for this discussion. Hey, If I just Googled the topic, I would have read Car & Driver and thought the info was creditable. The other enviromental articles I have read are not just comparing MPG, but the entire process of making the subcomponets and shipping them around the world.
I put over 500 miles a week on a car and this technology and topic interests me. I thought this would be a good place to pick up info for the future possibly. I did not realize that this was such a touchy topic for some people and would bring out such emotions.

 

[Philip Hamm]

True, but when B.S. gets posted, it gets called on.

 

[MarkMel]

The only problem that I have heard about with hybrids is the amount of smug they produce. A popular TV program even 'reported' about the large amount of smug that has been gathering over San Francisco due to they Toyota Pius.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Yeah, the smug index over Ed Begley's house is off the charts.

 

[MarkMel]

lol

 

[bobbyg2]

It's only a matter of time before all of that smug destroys our country...

 

[homevideo45]

Yes I agree you should try google , you can get many suggestions there .

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Of all the Prius costumers I dealt with I only had one whose primary reason for owning the car was environmentally motivated. The rest were evenly split between tech-heads and folks just looking for something they could afford to put gas in.

Our local County Sheriff's dept even bought a handful for use as community service liason vehicles, mainly to save fuel costs.