Gas prices up 2010 Prius will be in demand

How do you buy your fuel and gas at wholesale? Our gasoline went up 10 cents more last night to $2.49/gal (just before Memorial Day vacations)

 

This time of year gas always rises due to the holiday. We are still way under last years prices. The economy is still in bad shape. Buying a new car to save on gas it not a priority for most people. If we got to the $4 range again then people might panic. I know it is a different car and does not have the numbers the Prius has but my local Honda dealer has 4 Insights on the lot with no buyers. Honda also has a good lease deal on the Insight and still can't sell. Maybe people are waiting to test drive the Prius first ?

 

Exactly. Gas goes up in the summer. I don't see a repeat of 2008's price spikes. Further, there is definitely not a shortage of other hybrids available this year.

For people who are so concerned about saving gas money that they decide to buy a new car, most will probably be just as concerned with the economy of their purchase. There are a lot of cheaper options out there: Insights, Gen II Prii (new and used), etc.

I anticipate the MSRP+ crowd is paying at least a $1000 premium to have their cars in June instead of waiting until the fall (in addition to MSRP, consider the port-installed options most dealers are tacking on right now). A few extra months of gas savings won't come close to equaling that premium (especially if they were upgrading from a Gen II).

If they paid the premium for the intangible benefit of having the car now, more power to them. If they paid the premium believing prices won't be any lower this fall, I think that was a bad bet. We'll see.

 

Another tempting reason to buy now if you were due to purchase anyway, is that many tax rebates are going away. I believe here in Hawaii, the excise tax rebate is scheduled to expire in August.

 

Agreed. Memorial Day is just around the corner, so prices are headed up. They'll continue to rise just because of the time of year. It doesn't mean there will not be other contributing factors that will make gas prices soar, but I doubt it means hybrid prices will skyrocket. Availability will not be an issue once we get to July/August.

Who is in this MSRP+ crowd? I haven't yet heard of someone paying above MSRP, and I certainly haven't heard of anyone willing to pay above MSRP. There always are port-installed options in GST, SET & a couple of other places. I don't see that as anything out of the ordinary (unfortunately).

And what do gas savings have to do with any of it? For those of us going from a G2 to a G3, there is no "justifying" the expense in terms of increased fuel economy. Even the folks with 100,000 mile cars still could continue to drive them -- cheaply.

As much as I hate the idea of parting with my '07, at least I know it will now be used by someone else who is parting with a car that uses more gas and more energy and causes more pollution.

 

Some dealers tried to take advantage of the bad shortage of Prius' last Summer.

There were package 2's with aftermarket sunroof and heated leathers seat with asking prices of $35k to $40k. Ridiculous.

Other dealers remained professional and sold the cars at MSRP to those who waited.

 

Here is what the OP is looking for:
Yeah you bought at the perfect time and paid a great price. Congrats!

I do wish I needed the car ASAP so I could go grab one now. Too bad I have an Accord with 150K miles on it to run into the ground first. I'll have to wait until at least the the end of the year.

To top it off the no sales tax deal in washington state doesnt end until 12/31/10, so I have a big window to buy the car.

I'm not one bit concerned about demand at that time. The WORST I will do is MSRP, which is the BEST you can do now. I'll have to finance 1/2 the purchase price so I'm more concerned with getting as good a interest rate as I could get now.

BTW does can anyone beat 4% for 36 months? Thats the best I've seen for now. Maybe I'll start a new topic.

 

What I have seen, and what I am doing is getting a "Home Equity Line of Credit" to buy the car. This will allow me to simply walk into the dealership, and write a check for the price of the car, and drive home.

The good thing is that you can get below 4% on these types of loans, depending on your situation, the interest you pay is often tax deductible, as it is interest on your home. Also, as 'HELoC' loans are structured differently, you can make the payments that you like (3 year, 4 year, 5 year, etc.., and yet if something happens and you lose your job, for example, you only usually have to make the 'Interest Only' payments.

In my situation, this means the following:
2010 Prius V with Navi, taxes, fees, etc.... $32,570
Down Payments $7,570
Finance Balance $25,000
10 Year, Interest Only HELoC, monthly interest payment (at start of loan), $88.54 per month.

While I would not want to ever be in the situation where I am 'forced' to make that interest only payment, as it only defers the inevitable, I would much prefer this flexibility, so that a layoff does not prevent me from making a payment, and losing my prius. Especially when you consider that all our other cars are fully paid off.

To see what your payments would be, use this site: Karl's Mortgage Calculator
It is a very basic calculator with little sliders to allow you to adjust the loan amount, payments, etc... Useful to check the terms on any loan, from a mortgage to a car loan, etc.

 

just saw the sales tax exemption here in WA state has been limited to Aug first....might have to try to buy in the next few months....totally sucky!!!

ill save around $2500 if i buy before then...ugg.

 

Isn't there a federal sales tax rebate this year? In Maryland there's no rebate as far as I know.

Rich N.

 

The federal deal is not a rebate, it is a deduction, meaning that you get back only a portion of the sales tax. But it is separate from the normal itemized deduction stuff, so those who take the standard deduction instead of itemizing can still get it.

 

I'm not so sure that the rise in oil prices is due to seasonal factors alone. The price has been steadily rising these past two quarters. Those folks who couldn't dump their SUVs and trucks last year may feel compelled to do so once gas approaches $3.00/gallon and there is still a market for their vehicles. This may be a knee-jerk reaction; but nonetheless, will create demand for all fuel sippers this summer.

I was in this predicament last year. I had an ' 07 X3 with another year left on the lease and a '02 Sequoia. Now that the X3 lease is ending, I'm getting the new Prius. If I had been able to make the move last year, I certainly wouldn't be looking to trade up. I'm actually very happy the way things worked out.

 

Gas is going up and there will also be a higher tax added to each gallon once the economy recovers a bit. It's only being talked about and Obama said he'd veto it right now but sooner or later we will be paying a price for fuel sipping cars. The roads have to be fixed somehow and their is less and less money coming in from gas sales as people have cut back and are switching to more fuel efficient cars.