{"id":784,"date":"2010-02-23T12:25:14","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T17:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/?p=784"},"modified":"2014-06-07T13:09:24","modified_gmt":"2014-06-07T18:09:24","slug":"prius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/?p=784","title":{"rendered":"Prius"},"content":{"rendered":"

I visited my Prius today. I didn’t get to take it home with me — they want me to pay <\/em>first, which is kind of crazy in this world of credit, but who am I to argue with the man. It’s a winter grey with dark grey interior. I didn’t sit inside to check for myself, but the paperwork says that there are 211 km on it — a bit more than I’d expect a new car to have, but not enough that I’m concerned it was a demo and that I would try to renegotiate the deal.<\/p>\n

This is probably a good time to review all that’s happened up to this point.<\/p>\n

The Car Search<\/b>: I must have had the longest car search process ever<\/em>. Back in 2006 my car was stolen and recovered (and yes, I did disclose that to the dealer about the trade-in), and I started looking for a new one. Even though it felt icky after being stolen, I came to the decision to keep the Accord, since it was still a reliable source of transportation. That didn’t stop me from looking <\/em>though: I looked at the Accord, Civic, Civic Hybrid, Matrix, and Prius. After much research I decided that a hybrid made a lot of sense in a world of rising gas prices (and I made many spreadsheets to back that up). Moreover, they offered a number of environmental benefits, so as long as the financial side was at least a wash, I was all for it. Plus, I didn’t know what my future driving cycle would be: if I had to do a commute through Toronto rush-hour traffic, a hybrid system would more than pay for itself. As a car, the civic hybrid (and later the Camry\/Fusion hybrids) were eliminated due to trunk space issues. The Prius, being a hatchback (and a purpose-designed hybrid with the batteries in the floor) didn’t share that problem, and looked a lot better than the Civic on a number of spatial and amenity fronts, and even compared fairly favourably with the Accord. I did think it was bull-dog ugly at first. It’s grown on me, especially as the aerodynamic shape gets copied by more manufacturers… but it’s definitely “quirky” in the looks department. Even inside, the high-mounted information display (which I like for its functionality) just looks somehow wrong<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I also did a lot of research into the many, many myths, misconceptions, and other bizarre ideas that are out there about hybrids. And there were a lot — I’ve covered many of them in past posts. I had my dad counselling me not to get a hybrid, because the technology is still “too new” — in 2006 he said to wait a few more years for more data; now it’s 2010 and that’s still his line. At this point I know that there are still unknown factors out there, but I think that things look good enough to take the plunge.<\/p>\n

The Wait<\/b>: Then came three and a half years of further research, discussion, and spreadsheeting. The Accord had it’s share of old car repairs to make, and each time I had to wonder when it would be time to give it up. After a wheel bearing needed to be replaced this fall I figured that this winter would be its last (since wheel bearings are expensive and there were 3 more in there that might be nearing the end of their lives). A few weeks ago there was the recall mess at Toyota, and I thought it was an opportunity to get a deal on a car they don’t normally negotiate too hard on.<\/p>\n

The recall doesn’t phase me: I think this can only lead to a safer car in the long run. Toyota is under the spotlight now and they will have <\/em>to make these issues right. Any car could have a hidden major defect, and I don’t really see it as being an area of concern after it’s been found out and a fix on the way.<\/p>\n

The Buying Process<\/b>: I went to Car Cost Canada and got the invoice price report for the Prius. CCC had a recommended dealer here in London, Tim Felsky of Toyota Town. Since I know I’m not terribly good at in-person negotiations, but am<\/em> good at having a sense of fairness and at working numbers, I added in a reasonable profit margin to the CCC invoice price, and sent it to Tim. He was able to work with it, and I went in to put down a deposit. It was just that easy. I probably could <\/em>have gotten a better deal by negotiating harder, or even waiting a day or two (the Toyota gas pedal recall spread to the Prius braking system the day after I left my deposit) — indeed, some people at PriusChat were reporting getting below invoice in the US, and one friend said I should have squeezed them right down to invoice price, since they still make some money at that point, and there weren’t any other customers around! Nonetheless, I got a better deal than I figured I would be able to get before the recall, or if I had waited until later in the summer (or for the 2011 release to avoid the first model year).<\/p>\n

So far, the nastiest part of the buying process has been shopping for insurance quotes. A lot of insurers want the day <\/em>I got my G1, G2, and G licenses. I actually do remember the day I got my G1 way back in 1995 (four days after my birthday), but can barely remember what year <\/em>I got my full G in. I don’t even know where to go to look that stuff up.<\/p>\n

I’m also shopping for a set of winter tires for it. Since February is almost over, I may not even put them on now, but if I can get a good deal as winter comes to a close I’ll take it and store the tires through the summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I visited my Prius today. I didn’t get to take it home with me — they want me to pay first, which is kind of crazy in this world of credit, but who am I to argue with the man. It’s a winter grey with dark grey interior. I didn’t sit inside to check for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}