Am I doing the right thing? Are there some particular problems that I can have with the car, that will make it very costly for me?
Super dooper
Funny how you say "good luck with that". The person with the biodiesel mentions he has been running it in his vehicle for 3 years. So it would appear he doesn’t really need any "good luck". biodiesel is a genuine alternative, even "making that crap in your basement with old restaraunt greese(sic)". The process for making biodiesel from waste oil is very complete, and cannot be "half done". It doesn’t matter whether you use fresh canola oil or used oil, you will get the same result. You either get BD, or you get crap.
Home makers of BD have sent their’s away for analysis and have documentation showing that their BD is 99.7% pure ether compounds. The standard is 95.5%, and that is the blend you are paying extra for at the pumps.
The process is actually quite simple and clean you can buy kits for under $1000. I’m currently looking into it myself.
In answer to the original question, it is worth your while at the very least to do a bit of research on the subject, all it will cost you is a few hours of your time.
hybrid cars are still under powered, heavy and unproven vehicles. The are only economical if you are doing under 40-50mph, after which point they have the same economy of a small car.
The issue with bio diesel is that you have to make it yourself to get it for 20c/gal. However, considering you could make a saving of $4-6000 per year, it’s worth serious consideration in my book. $300 – $450 dollars a year to run your vehicle sounds pretty good to me.
OR, you could run your hybrid on BD and have the best of both worlds!
ok first of all your not getting a bio diesel to run on 8 cents a liter or 25 cents a gallon i think unless your making that crap in your basement using old restaurant greese. god luck with that. when buying a hybrid you need to consider a few things. first and foremost the epa estimated fuel rating are not based on real life driving and not as good as they report. car and driver did an independent test and said basicaly that if your driving all the time in or around a city they are great, but if your doing mostly highway driving then the mileage is not much better than there gas counterpart. also consider repair cost. your warranty will not last forever and with a hybrid you wont be able to take it to just any mechanic because of the technology. if you plan on buying this car and driving it in the city, putting 45000 miles on it and selling it then your golden with the hybrid, but if you plan on driving highway miles for like 100000 miles i would do osme more research on the long term repair costs of the car.
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not much is known about the kinda problems hybrids have or could run into in the future ;but I here you can possibly get some sort of insentive when it comes to tax time
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Duh. Buying a new car is the best way to lose money.Buy I home or land, then buy a used Honda Civic.
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Super dooper
Funny how you say "good luck with that". The person with the biodiesel mentions he has been running it in his vehicle for 3 years. So it would appear he doesn’t really need any "good luck". biodiesel is a genuine alternative, even "making that crap in your basement with old restaraunt greese(sic)". The process for making biodiesel from waste oil is very complete, and cannot be "half done". It doesn’t matter whether you use fresh canola oil or used oil, you will get the same result. You either get BD, or you get crap.
Home makers of BD have sent their’s away for analysis and have documentation showing that their BD is 99.7% pure ether compounds. The standard is 95.5%, and that is the blend you are paying extra for at the pumps.
The process is actually quite simple and clean you can buy kits for under $1000. I’m currently looking into it myself.
In answer to the original question, it is worth your while at the very least to do a bit of research on the subject, all it will cost you is a few hours of your time.
Hybrid cars are still under powered, heavy and unproven vehicles. The are only economical if you are doing under 40-50mph, after which point they have the same economy of a small car.
The issue with bio diesel is that you have to make it yourself to get it for 20c/gal. However, considering you could make a saving of $4-6000 per year, it’s worth serious consideration in my book. $300 – $450 dollars a year to run your vehicle sounds pretty good to me.
OR, you could run your hybrid on BD and have the best of both worlds!
References :
I know about the Ford Escape Hybrid as I have one. The Escape gets great gas mileage in town but on the highway it is nothing to brag about. Also the battery system Ford does not cover in the warranty and is only suppose to last 8 yrs. It cost over $9000 to replace it. So if you live in a city and only plan on having the car for 5yrs or less go for it. If not don’t waste your time.
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sure you are. it’s a responsible choice, you’re contributing less to the general pool of vehicle emissions, you’re saving gas. there’s nothing better than putting 10 gallons of gas in your car once every 3 weeks! (well ok that depends how much you drive but you get the point)
the major determining factor here is which hybrid you are looking at. hybrid cars are worth it (with the exception of the accord hybrid and the gs450h, and if you were looking at the gs you wouldn’t be concerned with money anyway)
hybrid suvs are not, i repeat NOT designed with mpg in mind. those were basically a way to get the hybrid system out there and to play with the limits of what it could do. in these cases the hybrid system is mainly to add power and not to improve mileage.
with that out of the way, i can tell you about what you’ll come up against from naysayers.
what everyone is saying is "oh, well that battery is going to cost you" but what everyone doesn’t know is that there is no factual basis for this. a blown automatic transmission will cost you too (probably more than a hybrid battery) but that doesn’t keep people from buying them. and an automatic transmission doesn’t do crap for the environment.
toyota warrants their hybrid systems (drivetrain and battery) for 8 years or 100k miles. so your major expenses are covered for that long. since the hybrid components are the ones that you’re concerned about, that alone should answer your question.
current cost to replace a prius battery is under $3000. so if you buy a prius now, and the warranty lasts 8 years, and since technology gets much cheaper as time goes on (as evidenced by computers) by the time you’re out of warranty it’ll probably be nothing anyway. plus there will be plenty in scrapyards you could use- there are plenty right now actually.
the other things people are going on about is the mileage and about the cost factor.
epa mileage is doable. there is a bit of adjustment, time to learn how to take the most advantage of the hybrid powertrain, but definitely doable. NO CAR ON THE MARKET GETS ADVERTISED MPG and that’s what noone remembers to mention. and no you don’t have to drive like a granny. i enjoy taking the car out and playing around and i still get near the EPA average.
the "additional cost factor" has always amused me. what they fail to mention is that they offer much nicer options on the hybrid models so the additional cost is not for JUST the hybrid powertrain. you also get a nicer car to start out with. besides, maintenance for these cars is lower. toyota’s cvt transmission will probably never burn out since there are pretty much no moving parts to destroy. there are plenty of places you save money.
that said, my gas savings over my old car pays almost half my car payment
good luck!
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