Our 2010 Prius III lease is ending and we now have 3 options facing us. Assuming we can get the monthly costs the same, these are the choices: 1. Purchase the car for it's buyout and get used-car loan. No money down. 2. Lease new Prius III hatchback, under special incentives offered by TFC and dealer. No (or slight) money down due to equity in 2010. 3. Lease new Prius Plug-in base, under special incentives offered by TFC and dealer. Seems like no money down due to fed Tax Credit taken by TFC and put into cost. Question: should we seriously look at the PIP and add value to the deal due to the overall mileage claims? Are there any negatives in the PIP as opposed to the hatchback? Note - we currently average 53 MPG on our 2010, with 33,000 miles on the car. We love our current car and hate to leave it, but no extended warranty after 36,000.
You should be still able to purchase an extended warrenty for the 10 if you are under 36 months, so you could buy the 10 and get an extended warrenty if that helps in your decision making process.
If i were able to lease i would seriously consider the volt. The fuel savings are nice and they are running killer deals on them.
Well, you don't put many miles on your car every year... If you did and your current car was closer to 100k miles option #3 would be a great value in the long run. But purely from an environmental perspective of not wasting and replacing perfectly good stuff with new stuff just stick with option #1 for another 6 years and if you take really good care of your car it will still sell for a high price that in the future you can use as a down payment for a used plugin at 1/2 the price they're selling for now. The odds of your current Prius going another 100k without any major repairs is very, very high, especially if you do lots of preventative maintenance yourself, as well as keep your eye on PriusChat posts so you can avoid problems other people have had.
A Prius is simply too reliable for an extended warranty to be a decent value... Most people spend more money on their extended warranty than they would of spent on car repairs had they not had the warranty... Then again if you have anxiety problems about your car, maybe spending loads of money on warranty extension is the price you have to pay for peace of mind?
Thanks to Munpot42, F8L and PriusCamper for their replies so far. The Volt comment was unexpected. Always thought they were way above our price range. Our original intention was to buy out the current car due to cost increase in a new lease for 2012 Prius. Our sales guy is trying hard to make a deal for new III.
I mentioned the volt because their lease options put the price down in the prius range of $260 or so. That and they are nice cars.
