Bye, Prius!

Mar 06, 2009 13:34

The insurance has just told yus that they'll be declaring the Prius a total loss ( Read more... )

Leave a comment

Comments 34

danillo March 6 2009, 18:52:23 UTC
ничего себе fender-bender!
сочувствую, столько мороки...

Reply

igorlord March 6 2009, 19:03:03 UTC
Aga.

Btw, are you home tonight? I have a little task that requires no brains and lots of strength. I am fixing our futon, and that involves pulling really hard on a rod to stretch a spring and stick the rod in place. :) If done right, I think it should not take us more than 10 minutes. I can do it tonight or any other evening on the weekend or on Monday, I guess.

Reply

danillo March 6 2009, 19:16:48 UTC
"no brains and lots of strength" -- sounds like my type of work! :)

я буду после семи, давай созвонимся

Reply

igorlord March 6 2009, 19:42:52 UTC
Great. Thanks!

I expect to be home after 8.

Reply


ant_fugue March 6 2009, 18:57:54 UTC
in a similar situation I got two dealership bidding on the remnants of our previous civic, and sold it for $3500 (up from the original offered $200 by dealership #1)... so you can try the same.

Best wishes shopping for a new car! I would be inclined to go with a new car for a Prius - there are so few on the market (or at least were a year ago) that I came to susepct they were all lemons.

Reply

igorlord March 6 2009, 19:10:06 UTC
Interesting. Did you just call the dealership and say: "Hi! I have a totaled Civic, do you want it?" Do they then want to see pictures? Did every dealership you contacted want it?

As for Prii (Priuses :) ), there are LOTS of used ones on the market now. Every dealer has at least half a dozen (some have many more). Used Car lots also have many.

The question for me is how to figure out that I am not getting a lemon. I do not know much about what to check for, especially in a Prius (but I am mostly worried that the "regular" gas part of it -- the hybrid system is warranted for 8 years/100K miles by Toyota).

Reply

ant_fugue March 6 2009, 19:14:56 UTC
Well, I lived in small town Indiana. Both a certified Honda dealership and another used car dealership out of town that specialized in imports wanted it. It should be even easier to sell now. Yea, I just called and asked. It was small town, their mechanics came over and looked at the car - you may need photos, I don't know. Back then, I doubt they had e-mail in a used car dealership outside of Lafayette, Indiana. ;-)

I pretty much trust the "regular" part of any Prius with a clean record up to 50K miles or so. Are you sure that buying a used car does not negate that Toyota warranty? Generally it would, for other manufacturers.. and plus, you don't want a "warranty", you want it to work. I read horror stories about lemon electric cars, they are basically unfixable, and as you can imagine Toyota and Honda are not excited to just exchange them.

Reply

igorlord March 6 2009, 19:39:23 UTC
> Are you sure that buying a used car does not negate that Toyota warranty?

Completely sure.

Also, I've just called a few dealerships, and they do not recommend trying to sell salvage to them (or anyone else). They think that Insurance company would be able to negotiate a better deal...

Reply


yelya March 6 2009, 19:07:34 UTC
How much are priuses these days? I have heard that the amount of money they can save even with high gas prices is much less than the amount you overpay for them. Is it true in your experience?

Reply

igorlord March 6 2009, 19:13:02 UTC
Do you mean New Priuses? The package I am looking for (includes a few extra features over the base model) can go for $21500 + $300 dealer fees + regular taxes / registration / title fees...

The used Priuses can run $4-6K less (with comparable features and ~50K miles).

Reply

yelya March 6 2009, 19:14:42 UTC
Oh, so they finally became smart and lowered the prices?

Reply

igorlord March 6 2009, 19:40:10 UTC
Toyota is running a $1K rebate now + no one is buying cars in this economy.

Reply


anonymous March 6 2009, 19:32:00 UTC
Zhalko Priusa. esche zhalko chto Honda Insight
esche ne vyshel na rynok. Vrode skoro ozhidaetsya bolshaya price war mezhdu hybrids.

mishka

Reply


mamaracha March 6 2009, 19:50:31 UTC
Why do you want a prius?

Reply

igorlord March 6 2009, 20:08:07 UTC
Good question.

We used to buy it because Lucy wanted a "status car" and at the time, Prius was considered to be "a cool, green" car and was much less expensive than "traditional" status vehicles like Lexus, Acura, etc. And we loved our Prius 00 it was nice and reliable and did save gas.

And we'd only buy Toyota -- we have had great experience with all of our Toyota so far.

Reply

igorlord March 6 2009, 20:13:27 UTC
What other car would you consider (definitely we do not want anything more expensive than Prius).

Reply

mamaracha March 6 2009, 20:16:29 UTC
I'll ask my husband :).
He looooves Honda Fit. I'm not sure how much of a status car it is though. But it depends on what exactly you're looking for in a car.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up