Our city driving is more suburban than urban in Colorado Springs but if we do a lot of driving to the grocery store (1.5 miles) and back to the house, it brings milage down into the mid 30s. If we drive to multiple stops in the 20 mile range around town, we get about 40mpg. It's not great, but those kind of trips aren't very good in any car.

Shortcomings: I drove the HCH at night again on Friday and find the blue reflection of the spedometer on the windshield to be annoying. I also find the headlights lose brightness fast when they are dirty (a frequent thing driving in the mountains). My wife says the tires suck on snow which might mean they may not be great in wet conditions.

The trunk could be a little bigger and the windshield wipers could be cheaper to replace. Other than those things, we love the car! I don't notice any weirdness on the brake pedal (or if I did, I got used to it really fast). Try to drive another HCH and see if you experience a similar problem.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, for city driving, the Prius is probably a better car. However, if you factor in the HCH being cheaper, and if you get a bigger tax credit, it will probably take you a long time to offset that difference with the milage difference between the Prius and the HCH. Just be sure and note that any federal tax credit might be superceded by the AMT if it applies to you so look into your 2006 taxes before you buy a hybrid. We don't have kids and have very few deductions so we got the full federal tax credit plus the full state credit for a total of $4700.

Just don't expect to actaully see the 49mpg city that the EPA calculated for the Civic unless you are quite a hypermiler. I think the 40mpg calculated for the 2008 model (the same car) is a more accurate representation based on my experience (with the caveat thrown in that most of my driving has been winter--something you don't need to worry about).

 

40 City; 45 Hwy

 

We live in Manhattan, so the Prius would definitively have been the better choice in terms of fuel economy. I can't tell you how many times I've been in stop-and-go traffic and cringed every time I had to wake the engine to creep forward, knowing that next time it means it's not going back to sleep. And the Prius has nicer electronics, with an energy use display & graph, Bluetooth integration, HID headlamps, and a backup camera. The hatchback would've been handy. But the interior is just plain drab, to the point we couldn't stand it.

We get 37 in the city, 48 on the highway. That's in regular-use driving, not making any real effort to maximize economy, other than keeping the tires at 38psi. If I make an effort to keep my speed down, I can get 54mpg.