With 30K miles/year you are really getting your money's worth. Let's see... at 50mpg and 30K miles you need 600 gallons each year. In California gas is about $2.00/gallon (probably cheaper elsewhere). So that is $1200/year in fuel costs.

With a car that gets 30mpg, which is still good, you need 1000 gallons per year which comes to $2000/year.

So you save $800/year right there. Even with cheaper gas it is at least $500/year...

 

Dodge Neons are really not all that wonderful as basic transportation. I've had too many college friends buy them, some new and some used, and they all had the same basic fate, they start falling apart. Interior fit and finish is generally poor. The plastics and fabrics used are very cheep, feel cheep and turn out to be cheep when the headliner starts to drop, or the A/B/C pillar trim starts to separate from the car. Oh, and I just about forgot having the door panels start coming off. I don't know what Chrysler Corp. was thinking when they designed this vehicle, but it is pretty bad, even if you can get them for less than other vehicles, the value is further reduced by poor assembly and design. Compared side by side with a Focus, which I think is the closest competition, the Focus is a luxury car and the Neon is a roller-skate.

As with any hybrid, you have to look at the fact that you have two different power systems working together. As such, those power systems are going to age differently. The ICE is going to wear like most other engines of that design, but I anticipate less wear per mile than a regular vehicle. Electric assist will dampen the stresses of high acceleration and engine shutoff will further reduce wear by not allowing the engine to idle unnecessarily. Engine idle in hot weather and stop and go traffic is probably the worst enemy to vehicle lifespan. Hybrid designs help mitigate those issues. So, with the ICE out of the way, then there are the electric components.

Electric motors are known for their longevity. They are very simple and have only a few moving parts. Most of the wear on an electric motor will be along the main shaft bearing. If an electric motor is well designed and built well, wear to the main shaft should be minimal. Main shaft wear might not be an issue with the HCH because the electric motor appears to be mounted in some way directly to the ICE crankshaft. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

The weakest link is the battery pack and the electronic controls. On board electronics on vehicles have improved significantly over the past 20 years. Wiring harnesses are built to withstand vibration and weather to much greater degrees than in the past. The same goes for computer sub-systems. I anticipate that unless something freak happens to a computer system, such as a power surge or other unanticipated factor, the onboard computers should continue to operate without question for the life of the vehicle.

That leaves the battery pack. The battery pack will be charged and depleted within a safe operating area by the onboard computers. That safe operating area protects the battery from being undercharged or overcharged. That process actually extendeds the useable life of the battery and protects it from harm done through the natural charging process. But the battery won't last forever. The question remains, how long will it last. Well, outside of California the warranty that Toyota has on the Prius EV system is 8 years/100,000 miles. So, that tells me that the likelihood of that battery lasting beyond that distance is pretty good. That particular warranty is longer in California and other California emission style states.

So, as a final thought, I'm pretty convinced that most hybrids will probably last longer than most regular vehicles in spite of their complexity.

 

I never buy extended warranties on anything.
Period !

It is a gamble.
The odds are always with the house.

One thing is for sure, when you hand them that money it is gone, forever - no gamble there.

I buy a quality car, change the oil every 3K and take it to the dealer for every service.
That's it.

I'm 48.
I have NEVER had a car break down.
I keep them for 10 years.

YMWV

 

Sorry...I just had to chuckle.

A Dodge Neon has about as much resale value after 3 years as a Ford Tempo. Most of them have extremely poor mechanical track-records. Transmissions (Dodge in general, actually) are poor, performance isn't much better. Yeah, $10k for a car that lasts a few years isn't a bad financial value...but only if you don't plan on selling it and only if you don't add thousands in repairs during that lifetime.

 

Oh boy! Here we go again with resale value.

I've posted in other places about the false concept of resale value as a way of evaluating a potential vehicle purchase or in determining the appeal of a vehicle to a buyer. Cars are a consumable item. As such, the concept of resale is a farce. If a buyer drives a car until it is dead or has no more useful value, then there is no more resale value. It is fully consumed and in addition fully depreciated. If you can get a few hundred dollars out of a very used car you have done well. In essence you have consumed the car to a logical 100% value and therefore resale value doesn't apply.

If you buy a loaf of bread, a consumable item, and eat it all, there is no resale value, because there is nothing to resell. How many of us go out there and buy a loaf of bread, and then try to sell half of it to our neighbor? None of us, because the resale value would be so low that we wouldn't find it acceptable and the remaining half a loaf of bread is worth more to us than the few pennies we would get from the guy next door. The same applies in a much grander scale to cars.

If you have a car with is drivable, not in the shop all the time costing you excess maintenance dollars and continues to do its job well, then it is not fully consumed. It has more value in your driveway and as a daily driver than sold to somebody else.

A car becomes fully consumed when the maintenance costs start to rise and incidents of repair become more and more prevalent. At that point you should consider letting go of the vehicle. Resale value is not an issue because the item has been fully consumed. Somebody else will give you value for it for their purposes, but the value you receive in the sale will be decreased due to age, condition and potential need for ongoing repairs.

If folks stop thinking about resale value and start keeping their cars longer they will not loose as much money on trade ins and private sales later on down the road.

 

For those of us who trade vehicles every 2 years or so, resale value is a major concern, and wll dictate what we buy, to some extent. (Consumed, or Not.)

 

Hi All:

___Keeping ones car for a longer period is a smart financial decision but there are plenty of other reasons not to besides repairs that begin costing more then the depreciation on a new one.

___How many cars 10 years ago had frontal, side, and side curtains? How many had ABS w/ EBFD, TCS/TRAC, and VSA/VSC? How many had 5 * crash ratings as judged by the NHTSA or G ratings as judged by the IIHS in comparison to today’s automobile? How many had illuminated radio and cruise controls on the steering wheel and window controls? How many had Dual-Zone Auto climate or received 40 + mpg with all of the safety and amenities most expect today? How many had Smart Start/Smart Entry? I am grabbing some of the latest features of course but when Honda says their entire 06 lineup will contain Frontal, side, and side curtains, you better believe it. 10 years ago you could barely purchase a Honda that had frontals as just one example. 10 years from now will see a lot more Active Accident Avoidance and Traction Control HW, full canopy bags, RES’, and god only knows what type of purely sound based entertainment systems for those of us that do the driving. I can just imagine what kind of FE we will be receiving in 10 years. The averages may not move up a tremendous amount but the performance and capability of extreme FE will have by at least another 20 - 30 more then likely. All have to factored into a new vehicle purchase vs. keeping the old and it is a lot nicer jumping into a 2005 with all of today’s bells and whistles vs. the 97 that is simply dated no matter how you want to compare …

___And with the above, depreciation is a big deal. Although Edmunds $/mile estimates are a bit more then the actuals I have experienced, they are a good comparison across a range of automobiles. As is almost always the case, a new $14 - $16,000 loaded up non-hybrid Toyota Corolla/Honda Civic or Toyota Camry/Honda Accord will have a lower TCO (True Cost to Own/Total Cost of Ownership) then most anything else including $19,000 HCH’s and $32,000 AH’s on a $’s/mile basis. These costs do not change that much even if you were going to keep your car until it was worth $0 in fact. The TCO of the AH has yet to be published but looking at the spread as you move up from the Accord LX to the EX-L w/ NAVI or EX V6 as an example of models in the Accord lineup, the $/mile keeps going up even after factoring the FE savings.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

Why are you turning cars so fast?

 

Okay...then here's another angle...

How many drivable 10-year-old Neons do you see today? Or 7-year old? 5? 3?

Now...how many drivable 10-year-old Civics do you see today? Or 15-years? 20?

I'm not biased, but Civics simply hold their own better.