I have to admit, I never looked at the Prius except to "build" one on the Toyota site. I was dead set on the FJ Cruiser. I'd been keeping up with the progress prior to the roll out date. I have watched all of the pre-release videos, bought the mags showing it go through the Rubicon, even subscribed to one just because they showed a lot of the Cruiser in the pages. I had a spreadsheet detailing what aftermarket parts, costs and schedule of installation. I read the owners manual in pdf format the january before they rolled off of the container ship. I followed the mods to get the ATRAC working for $50 instead of buying the package. I even accosted people at their job so I could talk to them about ride & their impressions of their Cruiser. In short, I was smitten.
But situations changed and I test drove the HCH II. And my sales person was my sunday school teacher when I was a kid. So I was pretty much done. I like the styling, it looks like a car not a bug. Plus, I feel smug about only filling up twice a month instead of weekly.....

 

Leg room, I am 6'5 and couldn't get my knees behind the dash of a Prius. I liked the looks of the Civic and while tight I do fit in it.

 

I really wanted to like the Prius because of the hatchback. My last 3 cars were all hatchbacks and I am going to miss that versatility.

That said..... why the Civic instead of the Prius? I thought there were too many "techno-gadgets" that could fail. But mainly, it was the higher price and those lousy excuses for a bucket seat! The "bucket" seat is more like an overpadded kitchen chair -- no curves or contours at all. Guess I've been spoiled by real bucket seats.

 

drove both liked both but the Honda dealer was willing to deal. Toyota was sticker price put down a deposit and wait we will call can't promise any color and will give you $2000.00 less than the book trade value for your trade. Honda dealer took a $1000.00 off sticker price and gave me more than book for my trade plus I get the tax credit. All together made about a $6000.00 difference in price, seemed like a simple choice then.

 

I have to agree with most of what you are saying, I am 6'3" size is important. The Toyota dealer was charging $29,000 for the $24,000 Prius, and, though I kinda like the styling on the prius, Toyota's (to me) start looking old (style wise) before their time...when the Prius came out it was cutting edge, now, well it does kind of look like a cockroach.

Here in the inland Pacific Northwest, there are a lot of people who think that anyone who buys anything other than a 9 mpg Dodge Ram is a weenie undeserving of the use of "their road" my friend has with a Prius has seen anti hybrid rage first hand, I did not want to look like anything other than a Civic & in 3 months have experienced none.

Lastly, I love the color, Met. Pearl with the blue/tan interior, when I went on the dealers lot, I had pretty much resigned myself to not being able to afford a hybrid, I looked at Civics the blue had a grey interior (yuck) the tan interior only came in red or white (yuck) then there was this Blue hybrid, I had to drive it, I got such a deal with discount & high trade in, I HAD to buy it.

 

For me it came down to price (see the sig. above). I'm an economist so I couldn't resist building a TCO model using uniformly-derived data across a comparison set of about 12 cars (ranging from mid-price-high-FE like the Prius and HCHII to low-price-mid-FE like the 2.0l CVT Patriot), and when I got a blast e-mail quoting me $19,900US for the HCHII the calculus changed and I jumped. I still can't believe I got that price, but a dealer in VA had way overbought and my local dealer had an ironclad price-match guarantee. Hooray for Teh IntarWebs!

 

I prefer to say that the principle of competition is good for the consumer. Sometimes the winner is the lowest common denominator or the one with the best business plan, not necessarily the best product. (With all due respect to McDonald's and Wal-Mart, I do not find them to be the best in criteria that matters to me.)

 

Great minds think alike

I was also checking out TCO for my 25k miles/year and HCH2 ended up on the short list. Was sold on the test drive (3rd of 4). Its saving me more than expected as its taking miles away from our minivan carting kids around too!

The 19.9 price you got was really good.

You mentioned the Jeep CVT Patriot - if it ever came out with even a mild hybrid (and 4wd and manual) in package, I would already have one in my garage!

 

Big E AK --

"I am 6'5 and couldn't get my knees behind the dash of a Prius. I liked the looks of the Civic and while tight I do fit in it."

You can remove the plastic dead pedal and give yourself a bit more room in the footwell. I did, and it makes a big diff.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, seems simple enough.
I may make some sort of pad you can put on the E brake handle. If it works out may take it to my local dealer and see if there is interest in selling them.