We got a new Toyota Prius this week. The short story is that we needed something more reliable. Fuel economy is more important all of the time and the Prius gets 55 mpg. If you want to hear the long story, click through to the full post. I'll try to have some more details about cool features of the car soon. And I've got another announcement to make.

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Back story

About a month ago, Sara, Emma and I were on our way to Springfield, MO, for a wedding. Forty-five minutes into the trip, Sara's 1995 Isuzu Trooper started loosing power. We turned around and drove (slowly) back to Adrian and moved all of our stuff over to my 1992 Honda Accord, which made the trip just fine. After we returned we had the fuel filter replaced in the Trooper. It was cheap to fix, but we realized that we needed to have a car that's more reliable than either of these decade-old cars.

Going green

For a while now I've said that my next car will be a hybrid. The price of gas continues to go up and hydrogen and electric cars are still not widely available. But hybrids have been on the market for a few years now, so I think the early adopter period is about over. The cost of a hybrid is coming down and the quality is very good.

I did some homework on hybrids and learned that the Toyota Prius has been the gold standard for several years. Many consider the Honda Civic Hybrid to be a close second, but not quite as good as the Prius. The Prius gets 60 mpg in the city and 51 mpg on the highway (55 mpg combined), which is good for the planet and good for the wallet. I'm guessing the Trooper got around 13 miles per gallon.

Test drive

Buying a used vehicle has always made the most sense to me, but I quickly found out that it's rare to find a used hybrid. I could only find one used Prius in all of Kansas City. I'm lucky to have found it because I learned that no Toyota dealerships have new Priuses on their lot that you can test drive. Customers have to order a Prius, wait for about 6 months, then pick it up. So, that used 2004 I found may have been the only Prius in the area available to test drive.

We drove to the city to test drive this 2004 Prius. I wanted to know a few things about it:

• Can you see out the back window? (There's a spoiler that divides the rear window)
• Is it roomy enough on the inside?
• Does it drive like a normal car, or is it underpowered or jerky when switching between electric and gas?

The results were very encouraging. The back window was no problem, the car is very roomy (one of its big advantages over the Civic) and you can barely not tell when it's changing between power trains.

So, we sat down with the used car salesman to see if we could work out a deal for this white, 2004 Prius with 55,000 miles on it. They were asking $22K, which is actually higher than the MSRP for a brand new Prius. What's more, the $3,100 Hybrid Tax Credit is only available when purchasing a new Prius. So, buying a used Prius turned out to be a very poor option.

Our lucky day

Next we drove down the street to Molle Toyota to inquire about the process of ordering a new Prius. We wanted to know how long it takes, the amount of the deposit, whether the deposit is refundable, etc. At this dealership, at least, they ask for a fully refundable $1000 deposit to reserve a car. But, after telling us that, they mentioned that they happened to have been notified earlier that day that three of the Priuses in their next shipment were no longer reserved. Two of them had already been sold, but there was still a tan one with a package we could afford. We put down our deposit, knowing that if we changed our mind they would just mail us a check.

On July 4, we went to pick it up only two weeks after reserving it. We didn't get to choose the color and package, but we were happy to get around the 6 month wait. After several hours of waiting, filling out paperwork, waiting, going over the car and manual and a bit more waiting, we drove home with our 2006 Prius and left them with our 1995 Trooper (Sara and Emma were both sad to see it go).

There's a lot to like about this car and I'll try to highlight some of the features in future posts. If you're considering a hybrid and want to drive ours, you're welcome to do it.