Looking for a little bit of car advice from the folks here. After reading the MMM blog posts about his Nissan leaf, I'm feeling my car is a bit ostentatious and wondering if maybe I should switch to something more mustachian...
It's a 2010 Acura TSX that I bought used in 2013 from a dealer (paid cash, it had been leased previously) with around 50,000 miles on it. To be honest, I love driving it and it's been a great car. The only work other than regular maintenance that it has ever needed is a front shock replaced, but that was covered under warranty and didn't cost me a penny. I've passed the 70,000 mile mark now but the car still runs great.
Now the downside, it's the version with the 290 hp V6 engine that runs on premium gas and although I do my best to conserve fuel, I only get about 24 mpg. All of my regular driving is stop and go; here in Tucson we have a stop light every 100 ft... Yes, I'm aware I can also fill it up with regular, but when I've tested this before the reduction in gas mileage (computer adjusts timing for lower octane fuel) made it actually more expensive to fill up with regular. I only drive about 100 miles a week, with occasional road trips for bike races or vacations, but last year my spending on gas was about $800.
I've been considering swapping the Acura out for a used hybrid and am particularly interested in the Prius C, maybe one from 2012-2015. I love the 52 mpg city spec (on regular gas!) and I love hatchbacks from a practicality standpoint. My bike would probably fit better in the back of a hatchback. After selling my TSX, I think it would take $2-3k to cover the cost of the Prius C, and the hope would be that I would make that money back eventually in lower fuel costs (5-7 ROI estimate, maybe sooner if gas prices increase) and possibly lower maintenance costs.
Swapping a great car just to save $400/yr on gas isn't super convincing to me, so I thought I would put it out to the forum: keep the Acura or swap for a hybrid? Any Prius C owners out there that would like to share their experiences?