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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Guest Post by Jess - Do I love my Prius?

People are constantly asking my how I like my Prius. First - the story. I knew we would be getting out of the Air Force and that I would probably be commuting farther than my typical 1 mile on-base commute that I have enjoyed for so many years. My 1993 Saturn still ran great, but had 240,000 miles on it so I figured I could spoil myself and get a new car. I searched the internet for the highest fuel mileage car and the Prius won by nearly every account. I called around and found a great deal for USAA members as long as I could pick the car up in Colorado. That worked just fine since we were going to be in Colorado for a week while I was between jobs. I called 2 months ahead and got exactly what I wanted (a fully loaded silver Prius). Now you have to understand, gas was not cheap at the time, but it sure wasn't anything like it is now. I am glad I got my car when I did, because they are nearly impossible to find these days! It drives like a regular car and is plenty roomy. We take family trips with all 5 of us in comfort all the time (at about 1/2 the fuel bill of Kelli's Honda Pilot).

Here is a picture of the gas station next to our house.


Here is a slightly blurry screen shot of one of the car computer screens. The yellow bars are your average gas mileage over the last 30 minutes in 5 minute increments. You can see that 20-25 minutes before I took this picture I averaged around 80 miles per gallon and the five minutes before the picture I averaged 100 miles per gallon. On the bottom is the history since the reset button was pushed - I averaged 50.5 miles per gallon over the previous 216 miles. This is pretty typical. I drop into the mid to low 40's if I keep up with the 85-90 mph traffic on I-95 on the way to work. If I only do 70 mph I average around 48 miles to the gallon. Around town I get consistently over 50 mpg.

So yes, I absolutely love my Prius!

3 comments:

Maria said...

How funny that Jess posted this today! Chris Buckley just got here and we were talking about you guys last night and how he is going to sell his car and get a Prius like Jess! Did you hear us talking about you all the way in Florida?

The Addams Family said...

Jess,
That's great that you're averaging 10,000 miles/gallon, but you're averaging a whopping 0 phone call returns/attempt I make to call you.
If you don't call me back, I'm giving your number to Mr. Lichterbater...

The Less Extreme Couponer said...

Hey Kelli, this is Faith from Rockledge ward! I got your blog address from Happy's page. Your family is so beautiful! I heard you have moved back to Florida is that right? Anyways, thanks for the info on the Prius. I have a Ford Epedition and I feel the gas prices every week. I never used to think about how much driving I was doing but now you better believe I do. We stay home alot more! :)