I noticed this when I stopped to pick up the mail one day when I was coming home from work with Aila. It has been eight and a half years since I bought my Prius, and it has been a really great car. I have had great fun monitoring my fuel use, using hybrid parking spaces, driving around Southern Ontario looking for our dream house, seeing how well it performs in the winter, and even doing some aftermarket modifications.

In 2007, we even drove across Canada! According to my estimates for average gas prices and mileage compared to a "normal" car, I estimate that I have saved almost $5000 over the last eight years. Now, this means I probably haven't saved enough money to justify the extra cost, but if fuel prices continue to go up, it might start to work in my favour. Besides, that is 4500 litres of fuel that I have saved so far, which is about 10,000 kg of CO2 emissions, or the equivalent of planting 225 trees.

At any rate, I'm still quite happy to be a Prius owner. Someone asked me if I would buy the car again, knowing what I know now. I have to say that I would. So far this car has been the perfect size for just about everything I've wanted to do, and it has been a joy to drive.

In terms of maintenance, I have spent $7000 on maintenance over the last eight years. This includes a gazillion oil changes, 4 snow tires with steel rims, 4 new summer tires, a comprehensive cleaning and detailing service, new inverter coolant, a new water pump, cleaning the front and rear brakes, replacing a wheel bearing, a full front and rear brake job, a new 12 volt battery, fixing a leak in the A/C system and recharging it, and it also includes a new intermediate steering shaft that is being installed next week. So, I won't claim that the Prius is maintenance-free, but I think it has done pretty well considering the amount of abuse I subject it to. The main hybrid battery hasn't shown any visible signs of degrading, so hopefully that trend continues.

Technical details: This photo was taken with my LG Pop.

Comments

Nicely done. It isn't easy to capture the moment like that.