This happened like a month ago, and it took me about 5 times longer to write this entry than it actually took to buy the car.
We’d been hemming over buying a commuter car for 2-3 weeks. So about 10:30 on a Saturday morning and with half a mind, I cruised some carmakers websites and wrote down some numbers. The pattern of cost-quality-mpg was so clear and unsurprising, it really deserved only an hour of research. At the bottom end you get good mileage for a shitbox that is terrifying on Phoenix’s highways for about 16k. In the middle is a Corrolla with better quality but low-end interior and the front of the downward curve for mileage for about 21k. At the the top you get a good-but-not-great mileage nicer car like the Acura TSX, aka Honda Accord wid bling. Or for a little less you get a hybrid Civic or Prius, its shitbox feel with great mileage, and you get to save the planet.
So I thought, anyway, and was intending to buy the Honda Civic, which would be the best of the hybrid shitboxes for less than the Prius. Then we drove a Prius and it was not such a bad ride, nowhere near the Acura, but nice(er) then the Corolla ever was. Compared to the Civic, just on paper it was clearly 4th gen from-the-ground-up design over the Civic’s converted-design v1. And the hatchback would let me fit a bike without a rack (or so I thought, but for yon babyseat), while the Civic didnt even have drop seats cuz that’s where the hybrid equipment sits. It still seemed too pricey for the ride, which while better than the Corolla was not 8k better, since the interior was still cheap-feeling. So, its all about the mileage…that is where the money went. 50% better at least than the Corolla, or $500/year for gas at $3/gallon. 10 years to be a good purchase stricly on value, with today’s gas prices. Assuming gas goes up…its a good purchase.
While we went shopping for value, we both also really wanted to buy a hybrid. Even though the value was there, it would take years to see it, and it felt strange and moronic and extremely unsatisfying being willing to pay an 8k hybrid premium, most especially since the car was so ridiculous unsexy. If there had been a luxury hybrid…not some bloated landyacht like Lexus makes that still only gets mid-20’s…but a Prius-like efficiency with the boob-job of the Acura, we would have bought it. It would have probably cost around 38k, and that is a big ticket for what is still a small and relatively humble ride. But its the same premium you pay to get the “green Corolla XT”.
I hope there a lot of people out there like us, who have enough extra that they can make socially-conscious choices with their wallets. It is the demand from the non-shitbox drivers willing to pay for hybrids that will make a shitbox hybrid as affordable as a plain-old shitbox, and lead to more choices for non-shitbox hybrids, which is what will save the environment and drive political change. The income distribution in our country takes such a steep upslope into the upper middle class, that if you can afford to drive an Acura or a BMW or a Lexus, or a 40k Expedition, you certainly have the financial ability to affect a change with a green choice. Not everyone has that luxury, the moral choice is framed differently when you can afford the premium instead of scraping by on 50k-a-year household income. Which is why we both felt that we should put some money behind our cheap talk about living green and hating Bush and the gen X-white american-suburban sense of entitlement.
After the test drive, and reviewing what the Prius had over the Civic, the decision became so clear that I was ready to buy. What else was there…great value, best-of-breed, and all in under 2 hrs? I am still stunned by my own rapidity. I’ve been burning days researching a 3k bike…I spent an hour just that morning on Yeti’s website, struggling through a 2-year old review of the 575 written in French! I’ve been to soooo many shops looking for test rides, I’ve burned all the gas we’d save in a year with the hybrid. While on paper, this decision made simple sense, it seemed tremendously capricious and irresponsible to buy a car in 2 hours!!!! Salesman X is running around asking about finance rates and prepping the manage, and I tell Beckie we should just buy this thing and be done with it if they knock off some money, the honda is no-way going to be as good, and we’ll have spent time going in circles. And she reacts just like me: dont you think that is irresponsible to buy so fat? and I say yes but its 80% or better we will buy this very car in the end after running in circles at more dealers. Nod…so its time to see if we can get them to move: bring out the baby!
They get it that we arent thrilled with the tan color and not in a rush to buy, and say that they have a nice black one they can offer us, or they will make us a great deal on the dirt-colored one. I really wanted the dirt-coloerd one anyway; its cooler and doesn’t show the dirt. Meanwhile, Genevieve is rolling around on the garage floor and on the edge of a tantrum. Cmon, she’s having a fit and getting filthy, let’s do some research and get back to them later…” And he dropped $1300. Wow! from Toyota! Sold. 2 hrs.
gotta like the look of that plate.
