Curious, is your Prius gen3 paid off by now?

Yep. I would say building a credit history, if it doesn't cost any cash, is a good reason to pay on time.

 

No car payments in my house....titles are in the safe at home.

Droid RAZR HD MAXX

 

Paid cash, zero household debt and therefore not a slave to the American system. Keep the credit score high by use of credit cards, but the balance is paid in full each month. They can keep the car and house payment books.

 

Paid cash for mine too. Not wealthy just got a good one off in royalties.

 

Thanks to Alabama's 'papers please' law, I paid off my wife's car in October and have the full title . . . not that I wanted it. Probate is a lot easier if the wife's name is on the title. Thankfully, the mortgage is also paid off.

Bob Wilson

 

The car was paid off, but when I traded it in for the PIP, I financed the balance because it's at 0% interest. No rush.

 

Yes. I paid in cash. I'm very frugal - but my Prius was worth every penny.
Prius squeezes more miles out of every gallon of gas than any car I've ever driven.
Makes me feel cheap but in a good way...

 

Not cheap, wise.

 

Paid cash. No interest (and getting interest on savings/investments) is much more fun.

KBeck

 

For those of you that are paying cash....

Are you telling the dealer you will take their financing and then simply paying it off right away? The reason I ask that is because it if very well established that you can get a better deal financing.

 

This CAN be true, if the dealer is supplying the financing OR the dealer gets a kickback for getting a financing deal to the Manufacturer or its associated financing company (Toyota Financing). This may happen for full-market-rate loans.

However, most of the folks who have responded to this thread have taken financing using very low or zero percent financing. These are essentially ways of the Manufacturer putting the car on sale without lowering the amount the dealer pays the Manufacturer or the amount the dealer gets. (However, a low interest loan is sometimes combined with rebates, etc.)
But the manufacturer and finance company don't really want you to take the very low or zero interest deal, because they don't make any money on that part of the deal. Therefore, they will not be likely to give kickbacks to the dealers for sending you to the company finance co. When there are very low rates, you can expect whatever kickbacks go to the dealer go for the actual sales--so that the dealer has the motive to sell, and may increase its discount whether or not you finance.

If the dealer has to kick in for the low rates (used to be common--I think it is less common now), your nominal price with financing should be higher.

Because I have little information on the current deals that manufacturers offer dealers concerning financing, just remember: YMMV.

 

Good point about the 0% interest loans. They aren't making the dealer anything and you always have to look at every little variable about how the dealer makes their money.

 

I tried to finance the whole car with a Toyota Visa Credit card and pay off the entire debt in 2 weeks so I could get a ton of Toyota Visa Reward points - for Dealership servicing. Unfortunately Toyota Financials Services would only allow me to finance $5K through the Visa card and the rest had to be in a check. Paid off the $5K Visa debt the moment I got the bill so there was no interest cost - so I have several hundred dollars worth of dealership playdough for oil changes on top of the normal 2 year service agreement. Got my Prius about two months after Congress was raking Toyota over the coals for the runaway Toyotas - the dealerships were giving discounts on cars -any cars. Business was really slow. If I had waited until May the prices would have been lower (by about 100 to 300 dollars) - but the person I was giving away my Accord to really wanted in April - so I bought the Prius in April instead of May. In hindsight, I could have just waited until late May and sold the Accord in June.

 

My house is paid off and I paid cash for the 2010 Prius. My previous vehicle was a Toyota 4Runner that I put 305,000 miles over 10 years. It got 16 MPG. I get an average of 54MPG on the Prius.

Here is the math on how much money I saved on gas with the price of gas at $3.50 driving 35,000 miles a year.

Year 1 – 4Runner gas cost $ $7,656.25, Prius $4,537.04
Year 2 – 4Runner gas cost $ $15,312.50, Prius $ $2,268.52
Year 3 – 4Runner gas cost $ $ $22,968.75, Prius $6,805.56
Year 4 – 4Runner gas cost $ $ $30,625.00, Prius $9,074.07

That comes to $21,550.93 savings over 4 years. That is like getting a free Prius.

 

just paid it off this morning!

 

Yup. Bought in Dec.2010 at 0% financing and paid off in 5 years as contracted. Car is still going strong and I expect to have it a full 5 years of paid off driving.

 

This month will be number 60 and the car will be paid off. I'm excited to cut my insurance by 2/3 as I no longer need collision or comprehensive.