I cut and pasted this from my introduction post:
I'm not really a hybrid guy, I'm an old BMW 2002 (the model, not the year) kind of guy. But at 33 years old and with ~387,000 miles on the Bimmer it's starting to show a distressing combination of metal fatigue and rust. So time to look for a new car, and of course I want to get a newer BMW. But the wife has other ideas and wants to help save the planet.
So last October I did my homework, and one morning after my wife (who is a nurse) worked all night, I called her at work after seeing that the Honda dealer 50 miles away had two Accord Hybrids on sale for $2000 off of sticker. It actually turned out that they really only had one Accord Hybrid for sale when we got there.
So on the way to the dealer I showed my wife a bewildering amount of hybrid information I had found and printed off of the internet. No way were we getting a Ford. Our friends down the street bought a Prius a couple of months earlier and were very happy with it.
But the local Toyota dealer was where I had had some horrific experiences with our Chrysler Town and Country minivan (they're a Toyota, Ford, and Chrysler dealer), and I really never ever wanted to set foot in that dealership ever again. And I'm a bigger guy (6'2", 215 lbs.), and I've always liked having a big trunk like the BMW rather than a hatchback.
So me and my sleep deprived wife get to the Honda dealership, and we almost didn't even go in because my wife doesn't feel that the Accord *looks* like a hybrid like a Prius does. I explain that I'm not comfortable in a smaller car like a Civic or a Prius, and I never want to set foot in the local Toyota dealership ever again.
Then we got interrupted by a most pleasant young saleswoman who knew all the green and safety virtues of the car. We need to act fast because this is right after the last gas scare, and we want to take advantage of the tax credits ($3500 combined federal and state of Colorado) on our 2005 tax return. So to make a long story short we buy the car and drive it home that same day.
One thing that I liked about the Accord was that I didn't have to get into an arguement with my wife about stuff like leather seats and XM radio.
And she really, really likes the heated seats in the winter. And we were looking for more of a highway cruiser to go to Santa Fe and Phoenix rather than an around town car because around here we can just ride our bicycles instead. So after we buy the car a couple of weeks go by and finally my wife figures out that she's been snookered.
At dinner she expresses that she can't believe how fast this Honda Hybrid car is. Well, of course I explain that I'm not going to embarrass the hybrid movement by holding up traffic. She's a little irritated with me until my daughter chimes in and says "Well mom, you got what you wanted, and dad got what he wanted, so what's wrong with that?". After dinner I told my daughter to remind me to raise her allowance.
So our HAH basically replaced both my '73 BMW 2002tii and our Chrysler Town and Country minivan, and we also now have a '99 QX4 Infiniti (fancy Pathfider) for pulling our popup camper and trips to the ski area in bad weather. A year later we both agree that we made the best choice for our needs with the HAH.
It satisfied my desire for a high performance sports sedan and also my wife's need to own an environmentally friendly car. Sometimes you really can have it all.
