Trade in Highlander for Prius?

Do it.

It would depend on what you can get for your current car. Do the math on the cost of the new car compared to the current one. Then figure on the annual operating costs to see how many years it would take to make money with the Prius.

One concern I have with the Prius (and similar cars) is what are the long term mechanical issues or costs that people have not encounter yet.

I just heard VW will have a Jetta that is a diesel-electric that will get 70 mpg out next year.

Why bother? I can almost guarantee that it doesn't make financial sense. I don't know the exact specifications of your car, but a 30k V6 FWD Highlander has a trade in around $17000. The Prius starts at $21,100, plus TTL, which will be another couple grand. So, you need to make a $6k deficit in the cost of gas. How long will that take you?

FWIW, that trade in value was according to edmunds.com.

I actually only have 13,200 miles on the Highlander and it has a third row seat.

ur still gonna be upside down on your new note. the minute you drive a car off the lot its value lowers. Doesn't matter if its a Toyota or not. You will have better luck saleing it outright. Find someone willing to pay what you owe. But then again they are better off going by something brand new. Just my thoughts.

How do you sell a car privately that you do not own outright? (I have a loan on it)

Gas prices getting me down wrote:

I am thinking of trading in my 2007 V-6 FWD Highlander for a new Prius. I simply can't afford to fill the Highlander's tank anymore. Anyone have an opinion on good fuel-efficient family cars? Prius seems roomy yet not a lot of storage space.

In the end, there can be only one.

If the loan amount significant you usually cannot sell it. The vehicle is the lenders collateral, it insures that you pay off the loan. And you don't own the car.

An interesting compromise might be the ford escape hybrid, it is bigger than prius but better gast han the highlander.

from 4 to 5, then 6 and 7, before you know it you're in heaven.

get used to not driving soon. I bought an SUV so I can enjoy the last bits of the this Fossile Fuel paradise, and because it makes me feel good putting 4-5 Prius drivers off the road due to my incessant consumption habits.

ummmm yeah. wasting feels so good.

no really though, I get over 30 MPG in my SUV, so I'm not bitching. I'm talking to a guy over in town, bout a mile or two off yonder about putting 120v Nickel Hydride batteries in cars to give about 4-6 MPG more than they already get. There are a few guys who have hybridized their vehicles- He's thinking it would be a good business when oil prices go through 150, and 200. I think he's right. He's also working with newer cars to change them so they can take more ethanol. His thing is that cars are going to be too expensive to buy when the economy is bad and production costs are skyrocketing, so people will have to update and fix their old ones instead.

If most cars had Hybrid batteries in them, and could take 50% ethanol, gasoline mixes we'd be in a lot better shape, and we'd probably be able to drive for another decade like we do now, which would give industry time to electrify/hydrogenize. If not, well we're probably just a few short years from shortages and 10 dollar gasoline.

I read your posts. I always find them interesting. You remind me of a survivalist subsistence type person. There is a certain comfort in always being able to take of yourself. Are you or were you a runner also? West coast person I assume?

I also read your posts. You remind me of Ted Kaczyinski.

Gas will hit an average of $5/gallon by the end of the year. NHHs will be selling their bodies for a full tank.

Sometimes the sharpest blade is not enough.

I'm too lazy to do the math, but you should be able to get a decent price for the highlander at CarMax, assuming it's in good shape. Then it's a matter of how much you owe to pay off the loan and whether what's left is enough of a down payment to make the Prius work for you financially.

We looked at a Prius a bit in 06 when I had to get a new car, but thought the technology was too new and the prices too high, even for the tax break and gas savings. But if you're putting a lot of miles on the car, it could make sense. $5 gas isn't likely unless there's a gulf hurricane and a war with Iran, but $4 is pretty likely this summer.

Peeps - big oil man T Boone Pickens is short crude, he sees them dropping to 80. If the US enters into or continues into recession ... it will exert deflationary pressure on oil prices.

You guys should research Zenn Motors and EEStor. EEStor may have the answer. Lockheed Martin seems to think so, at least on the battlefield.

Mid West.

I am less of a survivalist than most make me out to be. Consider me, well rounded.

not many men are well rounded these days. If a man doesn't have many skills, well he isn't much of a man. I am a very good runner, much faster than most here realize. After I graduated I got bored- and learned a lot of things. Don't know how else to put it, but people better get used to walking and finding their own food- between not pissing off larger more heavily armed individuals such as myself. It will be more than a humbling experience for many. I wish buying a Prius solved the problem I truely do. But with some problems, you have to remove parts of the equation to solve it.

I'll leave that up to everyone's imagination.

Peepers Creepers wrote:

Peeps - big oil man T Boone Pickens is short crude, he sees them dropping to 80. If the US enters into or continues into recession ... it will exert deflationary pressure on oil prices.

You guys should research Zenn Motors and EEStor. EEStor may have the answer. Lockheed Martin seems to think so, at least on the battlefield.

Crude could go to 82, and gasoline could go to 4.25. There are so many factors I don't feel like going into. Alkalyte is running low. Finished product is running low. Ethanol is getting more expensive, feedstock in other chemicals that go into gasoline is also getting more expensive. We aren't on MTBE anymore. Gasoline is less tied to the price of oil than it was 5 years ago.

If you look at the price of oil, in the last five years its gone from 25 to 100. Gasoline, meanwhile has only gone from 1.50 to 3.20. We still have a lot of catching up to do in terms of gasoline. The reason we're not matching the movement of Crude in the Gasoline sector is because we had a huge backlog of additives that has been depleted every year for the last several years. They are finding cheapers ways of making them, and from different sources too, but its still going to catch up to us. Ethanol will only blunt the pain a little.

I see 4 dollars very soon, and 5 or 6 if the dollar really goes south in a complete meltdown. The gas might not even be there. The West coast is literally 5 days away from catastrophic shortage but demand has flatlined so they will probably get a reprive this year. while most of the country brings the averages up, its still a bad situation in some areas and it could devolve into mass chaos if even something small happened, like a pipeline fire. Whats more is that diesel is far worse than gasoline. Diesel is nearly gone in China. The whole world has a diesel shortage right now, and that will send mining and ag costs skyrocketing shortly.

btw, T Bone, doesn't tell the truth when he goes on TV to talk to idiots. What he's really says is this: "Me and my pals really trying to go long Crude futures but the market is too small for us to fit our massive billions in there without sending the contract price to 120, so we need you guys to go short and give us more volume when we go long"

And thats exactly what happened. T Bone said that at 95, he said it again at 98, and the contract shot up to 103 mainly on his fund and his pals buying up contracts. They know exactly what the game plan is.

The price is going over 110 very shortly. We're also gonna have another middle eastern war in March and it will put GOld and Oil 10% than they are today by the end of the month, very easily. Some of my targets are 112 for the April contract, and 1,150 for Gold. You may see some profit taking in April and May, but the trend will soon pick up in the summer as a spurt of economic revival from the Tax Rebate heats up the numbers even more. September is something big economically, huge. Its going to be huge is all I can say. If you think March gets crazy, wait til September. I fully expect some sort of economic turmoil on a massive scale, either China liquidating, OPEC cutting oil off to the U.S, its building to something like that. Also, thats when the Fed should run out of rate cut gas too...

it will all come together in a, nasty, exciting, and tragic for most way. If you're prepared it will be fun to watch- its a return to equilibrium, nature's way of correcting itself. if you're not you deserve every wound you take. I've been bitching for over a year about whats going to happen so no one has any excuses.

Sell quick. The market is shrinking fast for SUVs. Obama is ordering a pullout of the troops on January 20, 2009, and that will send oil prices skyrocketing to $150 per barrel. After it settles down at the end of 2009 gasoline will average $5 per gallon.