Good point. In reality, if you own an Excursion, it may be more environmentally sound to continue driving the Excursion until it is no longer servicable. Otherwise, you will be responsible for the huge energy consumption, emissions, and other use of non-renewable resources that are involved in the production of a new vehicle. And your Excursion will still continue to waste gas in the hands of others even if you trade it on a Prius.

You could have your previous gas guzzler completely destroyed and receycled so that the next potential owner, presumably of less financial means, won't end up driving a global warming machine that not only destroys the environment, but also eats eats up a sobering 25% of their take home income. If your used Excursion wasn't on the lot, something else may have fit their price range, like a used Kia.. or a new Kia, that gets 30MPG.

So there you have it. Anyone who sold a perfectly servicable vehicle to purchase a new hybrid vehicle is clearly an enemy of gaia and a closet republican.

The end game for the Excursion remains the same, scrap metal. Find the Blue Book value of the car and suffer a non-charged, accident where the repair cost is greater than the Blue Book value. The title will be invalidated; the Excursion will go into the melting pot; and you won't have to waste the gasoline. ("I was putting the boat in the lake when the Excursion stuck in reverse and drowned.")

The second option, sell it to someone who actually needs an Excursion for their business. You are substituting a used Excursion for new, low mileage vehicle. Small businesses and independent contractors come to mind.

The third option, find someone you are not fond of and sell it to them. They will pay for the Excursion gas and you will have a Prius. One variation is to donate it to charity (one you are not fond of) and take the Blue Book top retail write-off. Even the average MPG of both vehicles will be better than your MPG today.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

The thing I find shocking is that the Toyota Australia rep says the vehicle is designed to last ten years......

My Peugeot 405 is 18 years old, 341,000 (212,000 miles), with a lifetime average of 8.2 L/100 km (29 MPG US) and is on the original clutch, engine etc.....

The funny thing is that people here in Canada also tell smart fortwo drivers that "you'll be sorry when the battery dies". We say: sure, it's about a hundred bucks for a new one....just like your 14 MPG Chivvy LOL

2008 Mercedes-Benz B 200
2005 smart fortwo cdi pulse cabriolet
1966 Peugeot 404 Coupé Injection
1989 Peugeot 405 DL

Oh Snap! This forum is addictive! I'll post here as I've got a few things to say without attacking anyone's views directly (you're all smart people and I'd be nuts to take on a crowd LOL).

Here goes - when the Prius 1st gen was introduced I rented one for 2 weeks from Budget Rent-a-Car in Los Angeles. LOVED IT. I drove that little white rocket like I stole it and it returned 41mpg. It was able to maintain 110mph in 100 degree heat with the A/C on full blast, while driving safe and quiet like it was a VR game. I also ran the little tyke out of gas on purpose, and then drove it to a gas station - even more fun! A little orange triangle popped up on the screen to warn me I was out of fuel (doh!) and away I went, albeit slow and silent.

I came very, very close to buying one - and then logic hit me like a cream pie in the face - WHO IS GONNA FIX THIS THING?! The dealer - oh yeah sure, they couldn't fix the lemon issues with my 1993 Toyota T100 4X4 SR5 for the first 19,000miles, couldn't fix a no-start condition on my mother's 1990 4runner after 2 months at their lot, couldn't fix the idle issue on my 1986 Toyota XtraCab SR5 EFI 4X4 to this day, and last but not least - wouldn't own up to anything really being wrong with the above situations.

Thanks to the independent shops, all but the T100 were fixed at a reasonable cost by techs who had NEVER worked for or been trained by Toyota. However, these same shops will never touch a rocket science vehicle like a Prius due to a number of large concerns.

1) You need high dollar, specific, dedicated troubleshooting equipment to establish the problem with a hybrid drive system. Listening to the whine of the motor controller will not tell you why it's not working properly, or regenerating power properly, etc.

2) ALL ELECTRICAL PARTS ARE NON-RETURNABLE. Any dealer parts department has a big sign stating this and you bought it you got it is SOP (standard operating procedure). In a car where 80% of the parts are electrical in nature, good luck getting the right part when you can't troubleshoot at all. And don't even think about inexpensive aftermarket parts for that rocket ship, or salvaged parts cheap for that matter. Ever tried to find a cheap motor for a Honda Accord V6? And they made a PILE of those.

3) There aren't enough of these cars to bother learning a unique set of skills, let alone buying the special tools, and there never will be. Don't think there are special tools? You should've seen the tools I had to gather up to change the starter on my last Supra :-) let alone a hybrid. You could argue that a few million Prius' would change this but ummmm - nope - it won't compared to the 50 million other cars on the road.

So other than coming back to the dealer, time and time again, at $85+/hour - there are no good choices here folks. Like when Henry Ford had the bright idea to bolt the hoods shut and only give the dealers the key (determined against the law), and then when he wanted to make and sell his own special tools (determined against the law again), this is a sided situation and Toyota is the eventual winner.

WARRANTY they shout - mmm hmmmm just like my T100. It kept slipping out of park when locked up tight, and they had the nerve to call it (or me) something different every time I brought it back for the same issue. Finally, they embarassed my wife (at the time) by giving her a short class in how to shift an automatic transmission into park. I did not pay $29,000 in 1993 dollars to have some lot porter insult my wife's intelligence. I made that and a few other issues known quickly - like the fact that I inspected and test drove heavy equipment for the US Army for a living and how can something NOT be in park if the safety interlock system let me remove the ignition key?! They had no answers and it took 2 years time, the Better Business Bureau, and 19,000 miles on the odometer before they finally fixed the issues with the truck. So warranty that while you're at it.

K.I.S.S. is the fundamental principle in engineering taught to me by my grandfather, who worked his entire career in the aerospace industry as an R&D quality control engineer. It stands for KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID, and that principle allowed them to put men on the moon. There is nothing even slightly simple about any of the hybrids on the road, I've looked - NOPE - K.I.S.S. is not well represented at all. Anything made will break - and that itself sounds simple.

Another issue is the batteries themselves, and those are more than mildly toxic. The responsible thing to do there is require that every car and battery is tracked through it's lifespan and properly disposed of - to include the possible disposal of the whole car. This reminds me of the DOE's handling of spent nuclear fuel - they said they would handle it, and they do - by canning it and burying it in the ground basically. Out of sight, out of mind, and I sure hope the cans don't leak until we're long gone. In order for someone to be allowed to make something, we need to know how we're going to dispose of it. Full-cycle engineering I would call it, or full responsibility creation. This may seem crazy, but people used to bury lead acid car batteries in their yard to get rid of them - whoooops!

I definitely need to close this up and leave some material for the next comment. Feel free to exercise your American right to free speech, it's one of the few that go (somewhat) unchallenged. I'm not always right, I just call it as I see it based on my angle of view. Thanks for reading this pile and I've tried not to repeat myself or anyone else in the process. I read your posts and thanks for your time and effort :-)

Yeap:

My first purchase after buying the car were the shop maintenance manuals. I repair my own. My only Prius specific tool is a Graham miniscanner that I bought used for $50.

It turns out 50% of the cars we own are hybrids.

My last warranty expires in 4,500 miles and is the only thing keeping me from my planned battery modifications.

It turns out the Toyota hybrid transaxle has fewer moving parts than any automatic.

The electrolyte is potassium hydroxide and the electrodes are nickel and a collection of rare earth, nickel compounds. These are not terribly toxic compared to a lead acid battery. Treat them with respect and recycle.

Bye bye, for now. When gas prices ease up, skeptics show up until the next gas price increase.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

For years, the flying community has treated the engine in an aircraft as a semi-consummable by adding an "engine overhaul reserve" to the direct operating cost of the aircraft. This money is banked toward the time that the engine will need to be overhauled. (The period between anticipated overhauls is referred to as Time-Between-Overhaul or TBO).

What the public at large simply does not understand regarding hybrids is the acutal cost tradeoff between a hybrid battery "overhaul" (reconditioning, replacement, repair, or whatever) and the fuel saved by a hybrid. Even with a reserve fund of about $3800,00 taken every eight years or so of driving, the cost for the battery still comes out way below the cost of the additional fuel, assuming an average annuall mileage or greater (typically about 4-5 cents per mile vs about 8 cents for mile in an "average" hybrid -- more in a conventional vehicle). In addition, the battery can be almost completely recycled -- the fuel consumed cannot. All of this does not even consider warrantees or service contracts.

All of the above does not even consider the environmental impact of the several hundreds of gallons of extra fuel going through the tailpipe as emmissions in the non-hybrid.

It is the ignorant among us that will eventually destroy us all.