Jestersix

Car Advice wanted

patchin

patchin

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My BMW, besides being extremely ugly, is starting to have annoying problems, so it's time to look for something else. But what? So far thinking of Prius, Forester, BMW 528I,
and Mazda CX7. How different could 4 choices be? Trying to decide between my "Green" side, my last chance to have a nice car, or something in the middle. Would like to at least match my BMW gas mileage of 27 hwy and be able to carry enough to take it on vacation. A plus is being fun to drive. Open to all suggestions.
 
An Acura MDX gets decent gas mileage? I'll check it out. We drove a Lexus 300? SUV today. Very nice car, but the mileage sucks (22 hwy).
 
My vote goes to Prius.

Heres why:

About two years ago I purchased a new Volvo XC90 with all the bells and whistles. V8, AWD, etc. About a year after the purchase the price of gas goes up and the car seems like it is always taking more and more to fill up (at one point over $80). My wife says let look at Prius, very earth friendly person. So I go and drive one, ok not the performance, handling, looks of the XC, but it got around 45 mpg+. So after crunching the numbers on savings of fuel and the price of parts if something was to break. We now have a Prius and the Volvo found a new home.

I have grown to love the car.

400+ miles - $20
Helping out mother Earth - unkown price
Happy wife - Priceless
 
[quote author=patchin link=topic=6258.msg79574#msg79574 date=1234153992]
An Acura MDX gets decent gas mileage? I'll check it out. We drove a Lexus 300? SUV today. Very nice car, but the mileage sucks (22 hwy).[/quote]

So I lied, it doesn't get good milage. I think you are going to have a hard time with the mpg and "able to carry enough to take it on vacation". My Civic (an 02) was really roomy on the inside and I test drove a new one a few weeks back and they are even better now. The mpg ratings on the 2009's are 26 / 34 / 29 and with 90 cu ft of passenger space it's hard to beat for 20k fully loaded. Can you tell I like honda's :)

I tried to find Toyota's passenger and cargo volume but couldn' find it. Right now if I had to pick Hybrids I'd have to go Prius though. hth
 
Alright I'll chime in, depends what you want out of car. Prius even though is a "green" car, is VERY roomy as far as storing stuff for a trip, the seats do go down and you have station wagon amount of space as long as its just you and your wife. I took a trip to Yosemite with 3 others, and while the two in the front (me being the driver :D) were quite comfortable the guys in the back did have pillows on their lap and the like, but then again we planned to stay outside, if you were in a hotel probably wouldn't be an issue. Things I've gotten in my car, 6 foot long tank stand and canopy, Jacuzzi whirlpool spa tub, 15 sheets of concrete backerboard. So the Prius does have the storage space. However if you're used to a car with more "cabin room" may not be your best choice. And whatever you do don't look at it as a "money saving" choice (while it would be over the choices you've listed, vs a compact car it wouldn't).

I've heard good news about the Rav4, if you must go the SUV route, but I have no personal experience with SUVs other than my hatred of them :D

Your option between, green, sporty and roomy though is something you do need to come up with yourself. Having a sporty car is something that does appeal to the man in all of us, but sometimes we go with more practical. I like to go camping, road trips are nice, and having a 2 seater for doing that sort of thing would suck majorly.
 
[quote author=patchin link=topic=6258.msg79574#msg79574 date=1234153992]
An Acura MDX gets decent gas mileage? I'll check it out. We drove a Lexus 300? SUV today. Very nice car, but the mileage sucks (22 hwy).
[/quote]

if you are not happy with the mileage on your Lexus SUV, then MDX is no better. Of course, this is just my opinion. Also, MDX is in the high 40K...very pricey nowadays.
 
[quote author=Elite link=topic=6258.msg79752#msg79752 date=1234209977]
http://www.yahoo.com/s/1027913
Buy that.. I think you can carry at least 5 frags to the swap with that car LOL ..[/quote]

nice :)
 
yeah, I have an Oddy as well...love it! But I haul around my wife and 2 kids and a stroller every day. My commute is 20 miles, but we carpool so it's not so bad. When gas was high, it cost $60+ to fill a weeks worth of gas, now it's about $25-30.

We also have a 1991 Toyota Corolla...very close to 200,000 miles and still a good car. No safety features like air-bags and anti-lock brakes though!

My Ford Probe was pretty good, despite the unfortunate name, it had a huge hatchback and I drove it to SF from Vancouver when I moved here (even though I lived in Toronto). But someone rear-ended it (the car in front of me at a redlight was daydreaming when it turned green and just sat there, the van behind me was also day dreaming and just hit the gas when other cars started moving = stupid rearending!) and I had to write it off because the value had depreciated so much. I thought depreciation would only affect me if I ever sold the car...I was planning to keep it for a lot longer...but this whole "calculating a write off based on depreciation" worked against me...

V

PS. there is no point to my post.
 
talk to others that own a Rav4. Every owner I know is disappointed in purchasing the Rav4.
 
[quote author=GreshamH link=topic=6258.msg79760#msg79760 date=1234213282]
talk to others that own a Rav4. Every owner I know is disappointed in purchasing the Rav4.
[/quote]

Same here, I'd go with the CRV over the Toy, Toys just ain't what they used to be, darn I wish I could have bought a brand new 1990 SR5 :D

My friend got tapped from behind in his Rav4 at less than 5 mph, the POS wound up racking over $1600 in damage.
 
I like my '02 Rav4...has 140k miles on it and we've hauled all sorts of crap in it. Not much for power, but it's nimble and otherwise a nice drive. It's only 2WD, but we use it whenever we go up to Tahoe. It's also the designated dog wagon. :) We did recently have to replace the ECU, thanks to a problem with the transmission control module that I think plagued mostly the '02s.

CRV might be a good choice as well - I looked at those at the same time I bought the Rav4, but didn't care for the styling.

(How about the Honda Fit? I think they get really good mileage, and supposedly they're quite roomy. My coworker went to check out a CRV, but it wouldn't fit two dog crates - but the Fit did!)
 
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