News on hybrid vehicles, fuel cell cars, and the future of automobiles

which hybrid suv is the best now days? drive 40-100 miles daily.would you trust the brands that were on bankrupcy?

Why not just get a compact car? Even a hybrid SUV won’t get nearly as good a gas mileage.

I have a 2005 Nissan Pathfinder. Trade-in value is $17,135 but I still owe $15,664 with 30 payments to go. Gas price is killing me. I want to trade it in for a Civic Hybrid at around $25,000. Should I trade it in? If so, how much monthly payment and how many payments should I expect?
23 minutes ago – 3 days left to answer.

its ur choice dont go asking everyone

If so, can you give me an idea about your actual gas mileage?The Lexus site states 27city/24 highway….does it perform better or worse than this with actual consumer usage?

No a good gas economizer if you are looking for a vehicle of this type and save gas. I would not buy it if is going to be a grocery getter. You might break even, the cost of buying one offset the savings.

i want to get a SUV hybrid what one would be the best for the money ?

Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner

Looking at a Toyota Highlander. It comes in regular and hybrid editions, but the hybrid costs much more.

We have a Toyota Prius, drive it about 15,000 miles per year. It’s a great car, great stereo, great engineering, everything works, mileage about 50 city or highway. I like it a lot, would buy it again, would recommend it.

But we’ve been considering buying a Highlander also, to replace an older minivan we have. But for the $5,000 or so, all you get is an extra 10 mpg. We will drive the Highlander fewer than 5,000 miles per year, so it would never pay for itself. So for us, the non-hybrid probably makes more sense.

I suppose whether it is worth it would depend on how much you plan to drive the car.

Best of success.

If you were going to order flowers from a florist and you know that one company delivers using a hybrid suv and the other company delivers using a gas SUV, and the cost is the same, which would you choose? (This is for a class research project.)

hybrid…save the environment

has to be reliable. I don’t want to always be in the shop with it. Good on gas. Most important
Thanks

Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner hybrids are tops. Consumer Reports just took the Highlander off it’s recommended list and will no longer recommend a Toyota on prior model performance…. in other terms, their quality is slipping.

Also, Escape and Mariner are eligible for a greater tax credit (I think) and get much better fuel economy. $26,500 and 34 MPG vs $33,700 and 27 MPG for the Highlander? When the Ford uses a modified Toyota system?!? They use them as NYC taxi cabs, if that is any indication of how reliable they are!

The Escape and Mariner (they are the same, save for trims, colors, see which you can get a better deal on) are the only logical choice if you want a hybrid SUV.

Edit:
1: Highlander and RX are based on the Camry platform, so Camry issues effect these cars. The V6 in the base Highlander is the V6 in question, so this point HARMS your argument that the CR rating don’t really effect the Highlander. Oh and Highlander is mid-sized, and the Escape is compact. This might explain where the better MPG comes from.

2: Escape gets $3,000 in federal tax credits, and Highlander gets $0,000. NOTHING!

Oh, and you are right, at 4,500 lbs, the Highlander is MUCH more vehicle than the 3,800 lbs Escape. Of all the people I know with SUV’s none of them tow anything, and those that do tow much more than 3,500 lbs.

Straight from Toyota:
Highlander 3.5 V6 AWD- 17/23 (city/highway)
Highlander 3.5 V6 FWD- 18/24

So much for no drive-train loss from the "advanced" Toyota AWD system. They don’t even give you the option of FWD, which is all most people really need.

3: The city of NYC has announced that they would like to change over their current fleet of Ford Crown Vics to Escape Hybrids

4: OK, logic dictates that if you can get something better (in this case, MPG, since the asker is looking for a hybrid, that that is their primary benefit) for less (in this case somewhere between 10 and 14 GRAND less for the Escape than the Highlander), it becomes the logical choice.

If the asker wanted to tow things, he would look for a pick-up truck.

If he wanted more horse power, they should select the Chevy Corvette. They are priced shockingly close (base is a couple grand away from the Lexus), and has 430 hp and STILL gets better MPG on the highway!

So to make my statement more true, the Escape and Mariner (they are the same, save for trims, colors, see which you can get a better deal on) are the only logical choice if you want a hybrid suv, unless you have an extra 10 GRAND (!!!) or more for a new SUV, and really have a need to tow 3500lbs with 7 people in your SUV, the Highlander is the logical choice.

I think the Lexus Rx400 is the best hybrid on the market. it is really nice, my uncle just got a brand new one, since he drives almost 90 miles a day. Its a must have car, that is for those who can afford it.

If you are interested in buying a car, a government car auction might be the best opportunity for you.
There are there kinds of car auctions:
Dealer only auctions — only licensed dealers are allowed to buy or sell cars,You can not get in or bid without being a licensed car dealer or an employee.
Public auctions — the public is allowed in.In fact,you usually cant by anything from public ‘open’ auctions because usually the pricing is too high.
Government and Police auctions — Every day, the government confiscates, seizes and repossesses thousands of Vehicles.These vehicles are usually typically listed at 90% OFF their original value and auctions usually start at $100.

Four months ago,I bouht a near new SUV from online government auction.It only cost me $730 and i have not had one problem with it yet .
You can check out http://seized-car-auction.info ,That site lists top 5 Police auction sites and help you choose the best one.
Good luck!