Question WWYD - Car Related (Long)

I know this decision is only one that I and my husband can make in the end, but I’m looking for any other opinions or pro/cons than I have not thought of.
Long story short: we need a 3rd car. DH has been driving a crew cab extra long truck that get 18 mpg and we need to park it. It was never meant to be a commuter vehicle. Since DH really really really wants an electric car, we’ve decided that I’ll get a new, or new to us, vehicle and he’ll drive my Taurus, which gets 26 mpg, until we can afford an electric.

I currently drive approximately 30,000-33,000 miles a year. Due to the nature and location that I work, I drive a variety of terrain. I go to multi-million dollar homes, to gang related area, to downtown Nashville, very rural areas, and everything in between. Some roads are super curvy, are not paved, washed out driveway, or I have to drive though rivers to get to some houses. That should give you an idea.

The 2 vehicles I’m considering are 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid with 80,500 miles and a 2011 Honda Insight. The Escape, people report an avg. of 30.7 mpg and the Insight 46-49 depending on the version. Due to the different in the MPG, they would come within about $10-15 difference a month in cost of payment and me to drive to/from work.

The Escape: I’ve always wanted an SUV. It would fit our family of 3 plus 1-2 more as we are TTC#2. I enjoyed driving it, and it has leather. It would also be good for the variety of driving conditions I drive. It’s never been in a wreck , had major mechanical work, or air bags deployed.

However, I would have over 200,000 mile on it before it’s paid off and doesn’t get as good gas mileage as an Insight. Also, the dealer would have to agree to replace all 3 back seatbelts before I would buy it; they were nasty and 1 did not work property. I believe the previous owner had kids as the dealership said that they replaced the carpet and the leather looks great.

The Insight: It’s small. Although, I was able to put a RF radian in it, I just can’t remember how much room the passenger had. It’s been over a month since I test drove it, and will be doing so again after work today. This would be a brand new car, but probably would not be a good family car, but great commuter. However, the Taurus would be used on family trips and probably outings. The problem comes in when DH buys his electric car and the Taurus is gone. I would save around $100 a month in gas, but it would be going to the payment. When it’s paid off, I should have around 150,000-180,000 miles on it.

Any advice is appreciated and thanks for reading all of this. I’m just so torn and what to do. I made the good financial decision last time I brought an car, and have not been happy with it.

That's a hard decision. Could you look at how the escape holds value as compared to the insight? That could be a deciding factor with buying the insight new.

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I would wait for the electric ford focus due out the end of this year if possible. It will be plug in electric and would decrease your gas usage more significantly than the current escape. Unless the focus has changed significantly in size, a three across is manageable, and a rf radian works beautifully in the center. The body style will be the same as the current gasoline focus, I think, so you could check out the seating arrangements soon to decide if it's worth waiting for.

What do the cars cost? What's your budget?

Have you considered a Prius?

Ford Fiesta? A new Ford Fiesta gets 29mpg city, 40 hwy, costs about $15,000, and has a decent amount of interior room. I'm 5'9", put the front pass. seat so I was close to the dash but still comfortable, then went to the back seat...I had enough room for my legs and was an inchish from the front seat. I was surprised by the size of the Fiesta.

The fiesta is a great option, but it's not electric, which I think the op is looking for. They have quite a few cool features that come standard as well. Sync is really cool!

kathysr98 - I would love to wait for the all electric Focus, but it's not good for my husband to be driving the truck long term. (He has terrible depth preception and has already backed into my car and has come too close for comfort with other objects) Plus, I they have not released the price, as far as I know.

solmama - I would love a Prius and it would be prefect for us. The problem is, a new base model is out of our price range and used ones are going for $19,000+. We can't afford that with the intrest rate of a used car. The Pruis in our area that are in our price range, have 100,000+ miles, a rebuild title, or are located at Buy Here Pay Here type places that ... well let just say I've tried to check out the Prius' on their lots, but I didn't get a good feeling being there.

We can afford a used car around $14,000-15,000. We can afford around $20,000-$21,000 with a .9% intrest rate of a new car, depending on if we can save on the gas cost.

solmama & kathysr98 - We did test drive a Fiesta since they get great gas mileage, but it was too small for our family. DH is 6 foot and once you have a rf car seat, there just wasn't enough room for DH to sit comfortably.

We did retest drive the Insight and I was able to get the EFTA behind the passenger with DH sitting comfortably in front of it. I think I'm going to go with the Insight. Too many red flags with the Escape we were looking at, and too many miles for my type of driving. I might go test drive another Escape hybrid, but I think it's going to be out of my price range

Thanks for reading and giving me other ideas. I just really needed to get everything written down and talked though.

If it was in my budget I'd definitely by a new honda over a used ford with questionable personal history.

I just spent the last 3+ months car shopping and I HATE car shopping! lol! I finally found something this weekend that fit almost all my specs. It is a tiny bit over what I'd wanted my payments to be and it gets a tiny bit mpg more than my old car, but it came with all the perks of a brand new car(warranty length and all) and I get to look the guy who owned it in the eye(the dealership's finance manager was the original owner lol!).

So the peace of mind was definitely worth the couple specs that weren't perfect, since it fit everything else just right.