Anyone Drive a Prius?

My husband bought it for his long commute to work. Loves it, we bought it brand new in 2010.
My husband is 6'3 and it's one of the only cars that he could fit in.

following - because our car is at the shop - yet again! - and I would buy a prius in a heartbeat!

My dad has one and my husband had one for a while. My dad has a 2010, and ours was a 2009.

My dad's gas mileage is in the mid 50's and ours was in the upper 40's.

Now my husband drives a Camry hyrbrid and the MPG is at 40.2 right now - but it's a more family friendly car size wise and better for his 6-3 self. Still, my husband fills up twice a week so it's $120ish in a hybrid. And the Camry gets over 600 miles to a tank.
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As far as reliability, they are good cars. My dad's navigation went out as soon as he was out of warranty so that sucks...but I don't think either my dad or ours had any engine problems or anything like that.
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I see the tall people doing well. I think that depends on the version you get. My dad's is defintely bigger inside than ours was. And we test drove a 2005 at one point in which my legs (6'1) wouldn't even fit. So check the version or model or whatever it is they call it.

But I always vote for Toyota...great cars!

My friend's Hubby, has a Prius.
He leases.
And every year he gets a new one.
He drives a lot, due to work etc. and just life.
So he likes it just fine.
And they have 2 kids, which fit in the back.

I also drove one once as a rental.
It was great.
My tall Hubby liked it too.
My kids liked it.
It had good gas mileage.

I have two friends with Prii (is that the plural?). They are both very pleased with their cars, love the mileage they get, and have had no repair issues. One car is the first model on the market, the other a couple of years old. I'd get one today if it were within reach financially.

(Added: the friend with the older model did complain about blind spots when she was first driving hers. No complaints lately, so I guess she's adjusted.)

My daughter has one and loves it. I forget how many MPG she gets out of that thing but it is well above what Toyota claims. I feel I must mention though, she is a tightwad, she drives like a little old lady trying to squeeze all she can out of a drop of gas. No lie, prior to the Prius she was known to put her car in neutral going down all hills to save gas, even on the highway.

Still she has had it for two years and hasn't had any mechanical issues. The only negative is they weigh next to nothing so are not good cars for ice and snow.

I drive my boss's all the time and YES great on gas and Toyota's are great cars. It's also pretty roomy as my boss is 6'7 and cmfy in it. For me the only thing I had to get used to is the weird back window and I felt like it had a couple blind spots. Once I got used to it though it was fine.

My parents recently got a hybrid one. They love it. I just asked my dad and he averages 50 mpg. This includes city driving and on the expressway my dad refuses to drive like "an old grandpa" to TRY to get the better gas mileage. Just drives like he did with any other car. It has gone down to 45 at times when he has been running the heat with the winter weather because then it has to use the gas/engine (not the electric part - I hope I got that right, I know it goes back and forth), but also gets higher on the express way.

He said he has nothing to complain about with it.

Toyota has had so many problems that I might consider waiting a while before taking the plunge.

We have a Prius and have had no problems. Gas mileage is about 50 - higher during local driving vs. expressway (because at high speeds you are using only gas and no electricity). It's a little lower in the winter because the heater uses gas - a hybrid motor doesn't burn gas all the time so it doesn't run as hot. Standard car engines produce a lot of heat and can divert that into the heating system. So we get 52-53 most of the time, and about 49 when the heater is on.

Mileage improves even more if you coast when you can - that means not accelerating up to a stop light or having a heavy foot in similar situations. That's the same in a conventional car but the mileage increase is more noticeable in a hybrid because you really are running just on battery, which is then recharged when you speed up. The car handles fine at high speeds - no different than any other car.

Any hybrid runs very quiet at low speeds. That means you have to be careful passing pedestrians on the street or in parking lots because they have no idea you are there! So don't get annoyed at people who don't move over - just give them a quiet toot of the horn.

The gas tank is smaller in hybrids - around 10-11 gallons, so each fill-up is much less money and you go about the same amount of miles on a tank of gas: half the tank size plus twice the miles per gallon equals same distance between fill-ups.

We've had no major repairs - just the usual maintenance, and we're at 90,000 miles on a 2008 Prius. I don't think it's completely fabulous in the snow but I refuse to buy a gas guzzler just to have 4 wheel drive on occasion.

You can also look at American cars that have higher mileage - Ford has a hybrid we'll probably consider when it's time for us to buy a new car. But I'll still consider another Prius and I would have a hard time buying anything that averaged under 40 mpg after 5 years of saving this much money.

Consumer Reports is a good source for repair and complaint summaries. I would definitely research it! We also found it helpful knowing what the true cost was to the dealer - it helped a lot in negotiating a price, and we had several dealers vying for our business. So definitely shop around. And don't let a dealer tell you that a hybrid is tough to repair and so you need to use their repair shop. We have always used our local independent mechanics and they can handle these cars just fine.