A few years ago, during an online conversation with Willy and the kidz I said that the next car I owned was going to be a hybrid.
This was based upon two, very interrelated suppositions that ended up not being totally correct.
1) 'Turo was gonna make it to 250K
2) The auto industry was serious about making hybrid technology work.
In the end, the auto industry has yet to get serious about hybrid technology and 'Turo didn't live long enough to see it happen.
The Problem:
I know what you're saying, "but Nenie, the auto industry is unveiling more and more hybrid vehicles every year, they're totally serious about this."
Sure there are more models every year, but they're all priced out of the range of possibility for people like me. $24K for a Prius? That looks like a $600/mo payment for a guy like me, and where the hell am I going to get $600/mo for a car? Seriously. And, there are still people arguing (quite convincingly) that you really don't save any money by buying a hybrid since what you save in gas you spend on, yknow, the freakin' payment. So if the price tag came down...
Right, so here I am, needing a car, having the funds for a car and not having the car I really want on the market. Yknow, that mythological $16K hybrid. OK, maybe $18K, but that's it.
Which meant that I had to go back to the wishing/drawing board.
The Criteria:
Let's face it, 'Turo's death this summer came as a shock to pretty much no one. And as much as I hated to admitted that it was over between us, I was prepared to move on, because Nena and I had been devising a Plan B for a few years so by the time 'Turo gave it up on Prom Night, we were prepared.
We'd spent the past few years popping into dealers and auto shows looking at and test driving new cars, just to keep abreast of what was out there; we also peered at Consumer Reports every month and generally did what we had to do to be educated consumers so that when Arturo did go to the Victory Auto Wreckers in the sky we'd have the time to properly mourn him, because we knew what we'd do from there.
After all our research we narrowed things down to three models, the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris and Nissan Versa all of which met five important criteria:
1) Highway MPG ratings at or above 35.
2) Enough room to fit my 5' 10" wife in the back seat, comfortably.
3) Baby seat?
4) Enough of the bells and whistles I, as a hip, cool kid, need to feel, yknow, hip and cool.
5) Enough power so I wouldn't feel miss the 24 valve, in-line 6 cylinder POWER 'Turo had in his hey.
The big problem we ran into with our testing of these three cars is that their manufacturers complete misunderestimation of the public's desire for surprisingly roomy, fully loaded cars with MPG ratings approaching 40 for roughly $16K or less.
Apparently all three of these auto makers thought these cars would be wickedly unpopular and as a result, they really haven't made all that many of them...but that's still better than everyone else who doesn't have an answer to any of these cars.
I'll never stop being amazed by the auto industry's desire to eat itself.
Eventually, we managed to see enough of these cars, test driving each at least twice, if not three times in some cases, in multiple states, under different driving conditions.
The Results:
First off, all three of these cars are pretty much the same. There are pros and cons to each of them, but they all are pretty much the same car save for a few key differences.
Yaris
Like all of the cars in our non-scientific survey, you know who this car's parents are. I mean, it's a Toyota and from the moment you sit down, you know this car's a Toyota. Which you think would be a really good thing considering that 'Turo is a Toyota, too. But, sadly, it appears that everything that made 'Turo a legend was passed on to Toyota's little brother Lexus, so this car has more in common with a Taurus than it does with 'Turo, which is really too bad. This is a good car, which gets the best estimated mileage of anyone in the class. And, it comes in a liftback and a sedan.
The engine is responsive enough, and you never really feel like you're at a loss for power, but the base model is pretty stripped down, so by the time you add on enough of the bells and whistles to make this guy competative with the other two cars we looked at, it's much lower base price has been pumped up to match that of the other two cars. Oh, and have I mentioned that it just doesn't feel like a real car. At all. Truth be told it feels like the little Hyundais that are used as taxis in Colombia. And that's...not terrible, but not great either.
Versa
This thing is just a Nice Car(tm). It has all the bells and whistles you would want in a car and a few more. I mean, it has freaking Blue Tooth for crissakes and therefore, keyless ignition! But as bells and whistles go, this one feature so dominates, that you're left to wonder, ummm, what else does this thing not have? The big thing about this car is its Continuously Variable Transmission. I don't know if you've read the hype on this bad boy, but let me tell you something, it's THE TRUTH! This car has the smoothest, most confident ride of the three cars we tested (with an automatic transmission) but it has the worst gas mileage of the three, which definitely hurts it.
This car is a Nissan, though. Taking the best from my dad's Murano and the worst from my mom's Maxima. The handling is OK, but there's better handling to be had out there, and while the ride is really smooth, you always feel ready to pounce, to blow the doors off of everyone around you...but you never actually get around to doing that. Which means that while it's definitely a cool car, and the most upscale-feeling of the three, it's not the most fun to drive.
Fit
This one is the most fun to drive. The handling is perfect, the stereo amazing and its ability to fold the seats up and down and all around make for a great option for those of us who don't want a truck, but would like to be able to haul some stuff from time to time. The bells and whistles department is solid. Though they lack the big slam dunk that is Blue Tooth, you've got all the other bells and whistles you'd want to make you feel like you drive a big-kid car.
With an automatic transmission, this car does feel a bit underpowered, mostly because this has the trademark Honda transmission. It shifts hard like a race car which is really cool in the Accord or S2000, but when you have a 109Hp engine...it feels really lame. The manual transmission fixes this problem and, in fact, reverses it. The Fit goes from a slightly underpowered, two hamsters under the hood driving experience to something that you can't wait to get out and drop the hammer on. Regardless of which transmission you get, this is still a really fun car and I didn't have anything bad to say about the automatic transmission until I drove the manual.
The Analysis:
In the end, the Yaris feels like its pricetag, which is no knock on the car, it's a low end of the price spectrum car and it feels like that. Nothing wrong with being what you are. But the Fit and the Versa want to be more than the low-rent sibling. They aspire for more and they delivered. In the end, the decision between the two comes down to what you want in a car. The Nissan has a lot of things you're going to find in higher-end Nissans. The Honda feels younger, has more flexibility in seat configuration and has a few options that the Versa doesn't have. If you're going to get an automatic, get the Nissan, if you want a stick, get the Honda. For me the decision game down to mileage, the Honda is estimated to get 2 more MPG than the Nissan and that was enough to break a really dead heat tie. OK, that and I just flat out like Hondas more.