Should i buy a Prius?

Tricky one. On balance I'd say that you're probably best with the VW.

The latest Prius is better on a long run than the older model as the new one has a 1.8 engine and bizarre as it seems, this works out more economical and faster.

There are tax advantages towards the Prius that is true, and I guess you're gonna have to really look into these. Talk to your accountant.

The reason I've gone for a Prius as a taxi is that they come into their own round town and I am really saving money. I'll give a rough guide to mpg figures as follows;

Town = 45 - 50 mpg
A Roads = 50 - 60 mpg
Motorways = 55 - 65 mpg

These are all based on UK mpg (our gallon is bigger than the US) and the first figure shown is driving normally and the latter figure is taking it a bit more easily. Also, the top figure isn't the highest. You can eek out much more if you take things very steady.

Again, if you do mostly motorway miles then I personally think the diesel you have will be just great and will eat the miles. This is just my personal opinion but I would at least recommend you take a Prius for a long afternoon test drive, reset the mpg trip meter and drive some routes that you regularly take. Then compare how it works for you.

It is a relaxing and quiet drive though. Oh, and don't apologise, this is mainly a US forum but there is quite an international mix of owners and yes the Prius is pretty much the same car worldwide with mostly minor trim and option differences.

Keep us all updated and if you have any more questions, fire away.

 

I have done several longish motorway journeys in my gen3 but at 70-75mph. Average about 52mpg. I have gone a bit faster sometimes and the mpg drops to around 46 when you get above 80.

I would find a Toyota dealer who will let you have a demonstrator for a day (or maybe half a day) then take it for a spin.

If you visit London a lot, the gen3 is congestion charge exempt (costs £10 a year) so another potential big saving.

For me it is a good deal My mpg was 32 on my old Astra and is now 51 so massive savings on fuel. And no road tax

There are a lot of us UK owners over on the toyota oweners forum...
Toyota Owners Club - Toyota Forum -> Hybrid / Toyota Prius

 

I pick mine up tomorrow, and also do a lot of motorway work. My usage pattern is big drive to work on a Sunday night to a hotel near a client site, then a town commute to their site for 5 days, followed by a stop start slog down the motorways on a Friday night.

My current car (Superb V6 TDi Tip) would get a reasonable 39mpg on the Sunday runs and then dip to as low as 18 - 20mpg on the commutes. The Prius with it's tax advantages should also win through for me on fuel costs.

I nearly bought a Golf Bluemotion SE, but after a 24hour test drive in the Prius, I found the Prius to be better equipped and more refined to drive (I need an auto due to a knackered hip and shoulder from the Army days). By the time I specced up the Golf to T-Spirit levels, the Golf was £5k more than the Prius (DSG box and other toys).

I have always been a VAG man, don't remember the last time I had anything else other than an Impreza for a while. The Toyota dealer was brilliant, and went through a range of finance options for the business as well as the extended test drive. The VW Fleet guy offered me a quick 10 minute drive on a Saturday afternoon as he does not normally work Saturdays and would get someone to do it for me. The lousy attitude at the VW dealer put the nail in the coffin, and once I got over my own Prius pre-conceptions, I did the deal.

 

Is it possible to rent a Prius over there? Be nice to have more than one long test drive before you make up your mind.

 

The Prius should also be a lot more reliable than any VW product.

 

Not easy I wouldn't have thought. I can't think of anywhere that rents them. A good dealer should normally lend you one for at least a few hours, obviously depending on whether you check out ok.


Kempyk - It's a very different car to the Golf diesel but it certainly isn't a car to throw around a country road, but there are a good deal of plus points to it.

Also, is it going to be a company car or one you're buying yourself? There are a good number of tax advantages if it's for business but even if it isn't the free road tax and fuel savings are worth it. Bear in mind the 10k service intervals though, but also that being a Toyota is should go forever (well you know what I mean). The ride is comfortable and quiet, esp next to a diesel, the transmission is weird at first as there are no gears as such and you quickly get used to it.

You might even slow down a little as I'm pretty sure the Prius worm its way into tempting you into driving more economically. You just can't help it with all the gauges and indicators and also it gives you something to do to alleviate the boredom of motorway driving.

 

My Gen II Prius Touring would return 37.5 Miles per gallon (you'll havta do the conversion to KPG) that is the car fully loaded at 70 - 80 Miles per hour. The new 2010 I now drive does slightly better. I drove it to Atlanta, Georgia and back from beyond New York City, a round trip on open highways (interstate freeways) of well over 2000 miles in the course of a week.

The generation 3 models are designed to do better on highways, and return slightly worse mileage than the generation 2 model in city driving.

Each of my Prius cars were assembled in Japan, so you can probably assume the UK Prius would be the same.

 

My nearest dealer was very forthcoming in lending me a Prius T-Spirit for as long as I wanted. I had it a full day and did all our usual driving...

If your local dealer is not willing to do that, I'd take my business somewhere else as well...

It was only a short motorway journey (St Albans to Milton Keynes) but whilst doing just over 80mph I got 57.1mpg average back...Around town, and in stop start traffic the consumption became considerably less which is good...

You have to tell me though where you drive, as I am wrecking my brain where in the UK you are that you don't have any start stop traffic and can set cruise control to 85mph....

Spec and interior size makes it a no brainer to me. The true blue motion VAG models have too many limitations on them for my liking...No automatic, no HID's which are immediately two must haves gone....

PS. I do wonder when someone in this thread posted that they have a bluemotion with DSG...Surely that is not the real bluemotion version, but more just something what they call the bluemotion tech version...I.e. it has some of the bits....
PPS. I also found driving the 1.6TDI which is in the true bluemotion, that it is very slow in comparison to the Prius.....

 

Note to kempyk - 37.5 mpg US is about 45 mpg UK. Oh and the Prius gets 0-60 mph in 10 seconds! Bet your Bluemotion doesn't



Note to NewYorker - We still use miles in the UK. We have a mix of metric and normal but mostly towards metric these days. Fuel is sold in litres but most people still prefer to convert to UK gallons. Don't ask why we've got such a mix up! lol

 

I prefer litres to gallons And so does a whole new generation who are being taught metric

Just wonder what will replace the Euro now

 

Prius can do 4.9 l/100km at 105 km/hour, maybe better. If you like the car or want to minimize your carbon footprint, buy a Prius. If you want to minimize your total cost of ownership, buy a recent used compact something.

 

Chinese yuan.

Tom

 

Does that come with hoi sin sauce

 

That is another bonus with the gen3. You can drive around economically keeping the mpg up but when you need it, there is a fair amount of ooomph. Doesn't seem to matter what speed you are doing, just put your foot down and off she goes.

 

Are you really from the UK? I don't know anywhere in the UK that has no traffic jams?!!!
Everywhere I go I seem to get stuck somewhere. Even in Wales!

And you talk about the Tax. Lets say that the max tax for petrol car now is £240. So in total after hmm 10 years of owning the car compared to a prius you would have saved £2,400 pounds. Not really that much after 10 years. Also considering that you are going to buy a new Prius the £2,400 you will never make because of depreciation of buying a new car.

So if you are talking about Savings then no you won't save much going from a Diesel to Hybrid just to save on Tax! On Petrol you will save up to £40 pounds a month on your petrol so a year will be £480, 10 years 4,800 plus £2,400 thats a total of £7,200.

But If you take depreciation you will never make up that £7,200 and not to mention cost of battery replacement after 8 years of £3,000. You won't save much at all.

 

The tax you are illustrating is actually not a tax it is the road fund license.

If this car is a company provided car then as part of income tax there is a ruling called benefit in kind. I won't go into all the details but effectively the co2 emissions place your car in a table which gives a percentage. You multiply that percentage times the manufacturer recommended retail price including all options. I think the prius is in the lowest category at 13%.

Now if you were to have a diesel car a correction is applied to that percentage to acknowledge the emission of other nasties.

So when you have that portion, you have to add it to your total income. Depending on your level of income it means you pay 20% 40% or 50% tax over it.

Then there is fuel duties, granted technically not a tax either. Diesel had higher fuel duties than petrol do you pay more there.

But if you are a limited liability company owner providing green company cars have benefits in write down against profits in corporation tax. You can't do that with normal cars. The only other type of vehicle you can do that with which is suitable for family transport as well are large double cab pickup trucks. As long as they have a payload of more than a metric tonne you are laughing. Hence i got one

Depending on your personal circumstance you actually can end up paying less tax through bik. This is becauses the amount is fixed.

Hope that helps clarify it. We are actually talking about thousands per year not per ten years.

 

I looked at mine over its projected 5 year life span. Car tax for an automatic diesel car such as a Mondeo/Avensis is about £215 a year at the moment. So times by 5 years (assuming it doesn't go up - which it will) is £1,075, compared to the Prius at £0.

That's immediately a grand saving over 5 years.

Then there the beneficial tax benefits as I'm self employed. I haven't got a clue about this but my accountant says I will save a fare amount.

Then there are the fuel savings over my previous cab based on 35,000 miles a year which amounted to £3,200 savings back in November 2009 when I did my calculations. Since then fuel has gone up 20% so the savings are greater. I'll stick with the £3,200 for now and times that by 5 years is £16,000.

Add the £16,000 to the £1,075 annual road tax saving and that amounts to £17,075 savings for me over a 5 years.

So for me the Prius is almost a free car and at the end of 5 years the car will have around 175,000 miles and if I get any more out of it the great. If not, then I've not lost anything.

I can't believe my fellow cab drivers don't get one, but I'm guessing it's that they don't believe the savings and fuel economy I get. One driver has recently bought a petrol Avensis automatic and gets about 26mpg and now complains about the cost of fuel! I don't want to tell him I told him so, but I did!