Hello all

I've been doing alot of research lately regarding my first hybrid purchase and have a question. I currently commute 20K miles per year and am considering both the Prius and the Civic hybrid. My local Toyota dealer offers daily Prius rentals but I don't know if Honda offers rentals of the Civic hybrid. I would like to spend a day driving each to make a decision.

My commute consists of 80% highway driving if that makes a difference. My question is did you do any extended test drives before purchasing your new car?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

It's a funny conundrum in that my dealer openly admitted that I knew a lot more about hybrids then he did, but compared to what I know now, I had no idea how to take a hybrid for a test drive.

I didn't take it for multiple days, just a few hours.

While your commute may be a great route to take it on, a variety of driving conditions I think is best. Try some highway, some city, and be aware of your MPGs and how "aggressive" you drive it. While I'm sure some people will automatically state, IMA (Honda's system) is better designed for the highaway, and it is, don't discount the HSD (Toyota's) system out of hand for that. On the other hand, you may be surprised with how the HCH handles in city driving, so don't shortchange either system on how they perform until you've had a chance to try them both out.

One of the things I did do right on my test drive was picking out a course that's almost exactly half highway and half city, to get a feel for how it felt under both circumstances. You may want to try some heavy traffic, and some light traffic, and realize that there's also warmup times and a variety of differences and cause and effects that can effect things like your MPGs. However, don't allow a single aspect like it's fuel economy to be the only decision to buy a vehicle. Do you like the vehicle? Can you use it for what you need it to do? Is it enough or too much vehicle for you?

You've made some great decisions, like coming here, and you're obviously keeping an open mind on both hybrids, so keep up the good work, and make an informed decision, whatever that decision may be.

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Renting is one of the best ways to find out what works and doesn't work. I would suggest also trying a Camry hybrid. It is a comfortable, roomy car that also works for longer commuting. The Ford Escape is also a nice ride with a little more utility.

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If you end up renting both cars, pay attention to the tires (OE?) and their pressure. It is a common practice to over-inflate tires, relative to manufactures suggestions to increase gas mileage. Tire pressure along with tire make/model will influence MPG and ride/handling relative to stock/new vehicles.

Also, there have been threads here for places to rent hybrid cars. I am not sure about Sacramento but SF has several places that rent HCH.

Regardless of which you choose, you can't make a bad decision .

You could try http://www.evrental.com/

They have both the Prius and Honda Civic hybrids to rent.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

As Gairwyn suggested, check out EV Rentals if you feel like driving to Oakland or SF. I have rented Civic Hybrids from them twice while on business, and it resulted in me purchasing one for myself!

Thanks for all of the great replies. I've already set up a rental on a Prius this weekend but did'nt have any luck with the Civic Hybrid. I spoke with several Honda dealers, 1 of them did'nt offer rentals and the other dealer did not rent the Civic Hybrid and told me that I should just buy a "regular" Civic.

They claim that I would pay less for the car and more for fuel but my goal is to use less fuel. My guess is that they just want to sell what is available.

After you have test driven a few models, you may want to drive the Altima. It has a little added "kick" to it. If that is important to you you may be pleasantly surprised with this car.

It gets late early out there. - Yogi

In addition to the the dealerships, consider someplace like Enterprise Rent-a-car that may have the models you're looking for available. You could probably get a deal through the rental company, particularly if you're going to test a variety and let them know that up front. Maybe you can a week-long rental rate but swap the car out each day? Also, their cars will probably be more "broken in" and give you a better feel for how it runs in the long term.

I would echo the suggestion to include the Camry Hybrid in your search, and the Altima as well. Don't just focus on the little cars.

One more note: a lot of times when people test drive a hybrid, they're first looking to see if it has acceptable performance, so they take it out and really work it hard. This will be reflected in any Lifetime MPG readings you see on a rental car's computer. Once you're satisfied that it can meet your needs for acceleration, merging, etc., remember that you'll probably be driving it quite a bit differently in "real life". Driving to optimize mileage and "standing on it" to merge on the highway are completely different, but you'll do both from time to time. If the car has a trip MPG function, use that for a portion of your test drive and really focus on some of the driving tips you can find here such as lighter acceleration, P&G, etc.

Good luck!

(It's actually an '09!)

Stick with the hybrid. You're right, they probably just don't have any hybrids to sell you and want to convince you to buy something you don't want. I'd avoid that dealership based on principle. If you buy a less efficient car you'll be kicking yourself every time you get behind the wheel.

I find it great fun to see how high I can get my MPG every time I drive, and it doesn't seem to get old. If I had a different car I wouldn't have this driving pleasure. For some of us, hybrids are worth it .