I think it’s about time to trade in the Nissan Pathfinder. I was already thinking about selling it and getting a Prius because I’m tired of spending so much on gas, but today pretty much sealed the deal.
Over the past couple of months I’d see the Pathfinder sometimes (read rarely) have trouble idling, and the Check Engine light would come on. Then it cleared itself up. Yesterday it did this again, but this time the Check Engine light stayed on. Fine, let’s take it in to the dealer. I dropped it off last night and took the bus to work today.
I got a call this afternoon from the Nissan dealer and they basically said that they could find nothing wrong. They called the support number for clues, and the Nissan support guys said that the problem could be caused by stopping the car while the engine is at a high RPM, say 5100. Well, I know I didn’t do that so my intuition says that there’s still a problem. However since there’s nothing they can do for now, they just reset the system and I’ll pick up the car tonight.
This alone wouldn’t be enough to make me switch to a higher gas mileage car. By January I’m going to need to replace the front brakes, buy 4 new tires, and get the major 90000 mile service which is supposed to be quite expensive.
I guess it’s time to start looking seriously at the Prius. I’ll have something more reliable and I’ll cut my gas costs by quite a bit.
Technorati Tags: Nissan, Pathfinder
The Prius is nice but have you considered a greasel Merc? It’s nearly free to run these… aside from the regular maintenance.
Jr
We got the Camry Hybrid when we moved, and love it. I would have preferred the Prius, but Greg couldn’t drive it because it didn’t have tilt stearing – but I’m dreaming of it for my next car. Gas mileage is great, and the Prius is a cool car.
We’ve been doing the Consumer Reports research, and the Prius seems to come out on top for reliability and good for gas mileage. The only options I need in it are an XM receiver.
The problem with the Prius is the amount of SMUG it generates.
I did think about the SMUG issue, but there are already so many hybrids on the road, what’s one more going to do?
I wonder who besides you, me and Mike understand the SMUG reference?
You might also want to look at the Altima Hybrid. It’s not selling well, so good deals can be found. It wasn’t an option for us since it’s not available or service-able in the state of Washington.
I thought about the Altima but I but as I recall, the mileage wasn’t as good.
I’d really like a modified Prius but until Toyota does it officially, it ain’t going to happen.
Frank, you have two choices: buy a car today that gets great mileage, or continue to send money to the oil despots while waiting for “someday” when there is an even better car. I’m not waiting!
Oh, I’m not waiting either. We’ll be going with a higher mileage car. But I’d still like something better and I’m a bit frustrated that I don’t have an option for an all electric, fuel cell, or a hybrid that gives a preference for electric power.
And on a similar note, there’s a reason why the U.S auto manufacturers are always in trouble: they don’t know what the consumer wants.
As long as money isn’t an object, there is a great electric car manufacturer right in your neighborhood – Tesla Motors
I checked out their web site a couple of months ago. They need to knock at least 50%, possibly more off the price before I could give it some serious thought.
But think of the gas money you would save
I read someplace that plugging in to your house to charge an electric car was the equivalent of paying 60 cents per gallon for gas. Just to make the numbers easy to work with, put gas at $3.60 per gallon and I want to recover $60000 of the purchase price. If I use 15 gallons per week, it would take me 25 years to recover that cost.
That car needs to come down a bit from its $90K price tag.
That’s because you are comparing it to a Prius. Compare it to a Porshe 911 and it looks a lot more reasonably priced.
Tesla’s estimates charging cost at $0.02/mile. Gas for a normal car is 25 miles/ gal @ $3.75/gal = $0.15/mile. You save $0.13 per mile. It pays for itself completely in a mere 769,000 miles. Or if you want to recoup just the $50K diff, 385K miles.
Driving 15K per year, that comes out to 25 years. Where did I see that number before