With $5.00-a-gallon gasoline staring us in the face, I’m wondering if it’s time to trade the Dog Chariot, a 2000 Sienna, for a more gas-efficient vehicle, even though it looks like careful driving will yield almost 26 miles a gallon.
I know I should be looking at used cars. However, I don’t know enough about cars to tell whether I’m getting ripped off, and around here not a single car dealer can be trusted. Toyota dealerships are especially obnoxious for their high-pressure tactics. I don’t own a male voice-studies have shown that women consistently get worse deals from car dealers than do men-and so I buy through a broker. The guy I’ve used in the past will negotiate only for new cars, so if I’m to have a man front for me, I’ll have to buy new.
I’d planned to drive the Sienna for 10 years and then get something smaller and, preferably, much jazzier. However, with gas prices soaring, the value of large vehicles is crashing. Right now the Kelly Blue Book value of the little tank is $5,610, precious little compared to the price of a new vehicle. I have about $15,000 in savings to buy the next vehicle, which I expected would be the last or second-to-last car purchase of my lifetime. If I buy a new car now, that will guarantee I’ll have to buy another one before I die-meaning I have to pinch still more pennies to stash another 20 or 30 grand for that purpose, just as I’m about to retire. Whee!
So, what’s out there?
The Prius gets 48 mpg in town and 45 mpg on the highway. The lowest-priced model, the “standard” hatchback, costs $22,870, slightly more cash than I have in hand, assuming I actually get the Blue Book value for the Sienna. That mileage is very nice, but
a) I’m suspicious about the long-term reliability of the new technology; and
b) that’s really more than I want to pay.
The Camry hybrid gets 33 mpg in town and 34 mpg on the highway. Its price tag is $24,740, more than the Prius. Its gas mileage is not all that much more than the 26 mpg I’m getting right now…certainly not almost 25 grand worth!
The Toyota Corolla gets 26 mpg in town and 35 on the highway. The cheapest model costs $15,166. Uh huh. I should pay 15 grand for a roller skate that gets the same mileage as a paid-for vehicle that can actually carry some cargo? Even if hypermiling extracts a few more mpg, I don’t think so.
Even as gasoline reaches the exorbitant level, the cost of a new vehicle is so much more exorbitant—and such a black hole into which to throw money, because depreciation converts what ought to be an asset into a distinct liability—that it’s not worth trading in a functional though relatively low-mileage vehicle.
We need to drive less and drive smarter.