After driving my 1999 Nissan Sentra SE (140HP) for 230K miles I am thinking about a new car. Prior to that I owned a Mazda 323, both with manual transmissions.
From all of the cost to own data I can find it looks like the Prius C is one of the lowest cost cars to own on the market. After being affected by a restructuring at age 60, that factor is now very important to me. I have also found that I am still driving and putting miles on the car going to various networking events. The Nissan although performing well needs work to pass emissions, tie rod ends and ball joints. Luckily I have enough cash to purchase a new car.
In many ways I thought the Prius C would fit my needs. However I am concerned by the lack of acceleration. I think got very used to being able to drop the Nissan down to a lower gear and quickly jockey myself the position I wanted to be in to merge into traffic.
Any one go from a high HP car to a Prius? Have any difficulty with the reduced HP?
I live in Connecticut. In practice I drive on lot of 2 lane country roads where passing is rarely done. But it's nice to know the HP is there when I need it.
Danielle