My first toyota was a '77 Corolla for my wife. It was a manual floor shift with there famous 1.8, 4-cyl hemi engine. I kept the car a long time but sold it to a individual and got a good price for it. Went to VW's, GM's then later we bought another Corolla in 2003. Great car and great mileage. Boy did they ever improve their 1.8 engine. I was getting 40 to 42 mpg combined from that car. The only problem was my wife and I being older bounced around on lone trips. The Corolla was lighter weight and sat higher off the ground could be the reason. I went looking for a heavier car.

I got smart and traded it on a 2006 Ford five hundred. Nice roomy car at a rather low price. It came loaded including leather seats with a 200 hp engine. I drove the car a year and was getting 30 mpg combined by easy peddling it around town. The car started having electrical gremlins. I had also taken it back to the ford dealer for various tsb's. I had ask them each of the four trips to please activate the DRLs. Finally the forth trip they did, after I gave them a copy from the internet on how to turn on the drivers running lights. That is usually a paid $40 option with this car. Ford did not charge me. I asked, but they never cleaned the corrosion from the battery's positive terminal in those same four trips.

A year later I figured I made a mistake and should have went with the early green TCH when they first came out. Back then there was none on the lots and you had to do the pre-order.

Made the trade and ordered the 2007 in late June. Evidently we ordered just before they started manufacturing the 2008 models. We received the car in five weeks. It felt so good to be back driving a car with toyota quality. You don't know this until you own a toyota.

I'm a gas mileage nut and have been from way back in the late 60's. At first I drove 50 and under best I could, learned out to drive under 40 to stay in the EV mode a few miles. My first tank came out to 48.3 which was mostly here around town and the 8 mile trip out on the highway where we live. I'm looking forward to going with synthetic oil on my first 5000 mile oil change.

Update: I went with the 0W-20 full synthetic from the local Toyota dealer. I bought the oil and filter from parts then changed it myself. I could have taken it somewhere else and just paid for the labor. Looks like after a few tanks I may not be driving as easy but still getting the same mpg. I would say about 1 mpg increase by switching to the 0W-20 oil.

My wife really likes this great looking car. It's easy for her to see out of and easy to drive. I feel that sticking with toyota can save a person lots of money over the years.