Highlander Hybrid 2006

Better do a bit of research, the US has not obtained oil from Iran since Jimmy Carter was President.

mike hunt

Reply to
Mike Hunter
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If you're suggesting fuel cells as a storage medium to replace the batteries in a hybrid, I think that's been looked at and thought not to work very well. Slow charge/discharge rates, I think, limit their usefulness. Over time, they may improve enough to make this work out. Also, at present, I don't believe any fuel cells are "chargeable," they all consume their fuel and then are dead until you add more fuel.

Some years ago, there was discussion of using flywheels to store energy (we're talking about Popular Science or something back in 1968 or so, mind you). The proposal I remember was to just spin up the flywheel in the garage at home, siphon energy off it in the form of electricity to get going and then use regenerative braking to put energy back into it when braking. I'd guess that wasn't feasible, either, but I don't know why. If you spin them fast enough, they needn't be all that heavy. I don't know if anyone looked at using them in hybrids but I'd guess somebody would have thought about it. You'd use a smaller one for temporary needs, only. Maybe it's tough to build a system around them for "charging" and "discharging" them.

Batteries that were only incrementally more capable would have a very beneficial impact on hybrid performance, either by reducing vehicle weight, increased power with better charge/discharge rates or more storage and ability to power most trips off the electricity grid (and then nukes could supply a lot of your daily driving energy needs). Maybe hybrid manufacturers are going with batteries because improvements in either engine technology or battery performance will be easier to engineer in using the basic designs they've got.

Reply to
DH

It doesn't matter who actually ships it to us. Oil is 100% fungible and a near-perfect commodity. Our demand is propping up their price. Every barrel of oil we buy from Saudi Arabia is a barrel of oil that Europe or China or whomever can't buy from Saudia Arabia and therefore buys from Iran.

Every time you turn the key in that V8 Mustang GTO, a mullah smiles.

Reply to
DH

I remember Honda is giving 8yrs/100,000 warranty on the hybrid part. Why did you spend extra $1100 to get only extra 20,000 miles of service? I am curious. Honda is brand name which is supposed to give you trouble free for more than

120,000miles easily...
Reply to
harry

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Here are the federal and state tax incentives. The federal incentive is as high as $3,150 and the state incentives can add to that. I suggest that anyone thinking about buying a hybrid check out the incentives, which can be quite generous:

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Reply to
neilnewsgroups

But more cost savings at $4 per gallon - and at $5 per gallon...

The hybrid may also save money on brake jobs. The extra acceleration is a factor (although I don't see why the hybrid Highlander doesn't feature a

4-cylinder engine for more fuel economy and merely "very good" acceleration).

Your assertion of the habits of the "average" new car buyer is an interesting one. Given that many of the new cars sold in the US are still the domestic product, is it possible there's a bimodality here? Perhaps purchasers of new domestic cars unload them in just a few years, to avoid trying to keep the junk running after the warranty runs out and purchasers of new Toyotas (and Hondas, etc, maybe) keep them far longer because they don't start experiencing reliability problems until they're in their second decade?

One of my close friends is a Buick owner. He gets rid of them when they reach 80,000 miles because he doesn't trust them beyond that point. He points to things like plastic valve covers and plastic gears in the window mechanisms as issues that have already bitten him. Initial "quality" is OK with these parts (they work and the car is often correctly assembled) but GM saves $.0002 building a car that won't last as long as it would with metal parts. He said he was considering keeping his '01 past 80K and asked a local mechanic what problems he might run into if he did.

"Well, at 100K, we start to see a lot of hydro-lock," was the mechanic's reply.

As he related this to me, I had to stop him and ask, "Hydro-lock? What the hell's that?"

My friend replied, "I'd never heard of it, either, so I asked, too. Hydro-lock is what happens when the gasket goes or the head cracks or the barrier between the piston and the coolant system otherwise breaks down. The piston fills up with fluid and the engine can't be cranked because the fluid's incompressible. At 80K, I feel like I'm living on borrowed time."

Well, you learn something new every day. He's selling. On the other hand, I have been keeping my Volvos for decades and plan to keep my Toyotas a similar length of time.

Reply to
DH

It is highly likely the hybrids will last much longer than the older cars

Reply to
gosinn

IMO, and from the "insider" studies I've seen, the difference in domestic and import nameplate buyers is a little more subtle. I seem to recall reading that historically, import buyers tended to keep their vehicles longer than domestic buyers. Import buyers kept their vehicles longer partly because of the higher acquisition cost, partly because of confidence in the vehicle at higher mileage, and partly because they felt that their vehicle still held its value. On the other hand, historical domestic buyers traded more often partly because of the lower acquisition cost and to keep up with model upgrades. In other words, the reasons to keep an import longer or a domestic for a shorter period were different.

Toyota has several things in mind in their quest to increase vehicle sales. Lowering the MSRP too much sets them up for allegations of dumping, and putting GM and Ford out of business would cause a huge anti-import backlash and higher tarriffs. Toyota probably thinks more globally than any other car company, with attention to markets on every inhabited continent. Ford and GM are active in Europe and in China but are probably less active in other parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Reply to
Ray O

Perhaps you may if the one you own is not one of the Toyotas with the 'gelling' problem or the head gasket problem. LOL

mike hunt

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Actually, I see "gelling" rumors on the internet about the Sienna all the time. I own a Sienna and I've had no problems with gelling or anything else. Three good family friends here in town own Siennas as old or older than mine. They haven't encountered any gelling issues or any other reliability problems. No visits to the shop except routine service. My brother-in-law in a different state owns a Sienna and a Corolla. No gelling, no reliablity issues, no visits to the shop except for routine service. This is one of the most popular vehicles in town. I once found that there were 3 other Siennas identical to mine in color and trim level(no identifiable model year differences, either) in the high school parking lot one evening. Thank heavens for keychain clickers. Nobody around here is complaining about their Sienna reliability. Nor have I run into anybody who had experienced a Toyota head gasket failure.

So, I'm not terribly worked up about the possibility that my Toyota engines will die on me.

On the other hand, both my brother and I have been stranded on vacation by Ford transmission failures at 40 to 50K miles. My father-in-law's last large Ford spontaneously broke an axle. His last Ford of any kind (he buys Mazdas now) had an engine fire for no obvious reason. In all four cases, Ford's attitude on these failures was to flip us the bird. And I don't mean they gave us complimentary T-birds while they fixed our cars.

Is my sample size too small to be statistically significant? Probably. However, personal experience reinforces what I have consistently read in Consumer Reports - Toyotas have good track records for reliability and Ford doesn't.

You think your Ford products are reliable and economical? Well, I can't control what you believe but I'm not persuaded.

If I saw 10 years of Consumer Reports articles suggesting Ford had superior product reliability, I don't know if I'd consider a Ford; I was so badly offended by the way I was already treated, that I swore I'd never buy a Ford again. My brother swore he'd never buy a Ford again, too.

Reply to
DH

Seems every owner has their own experiences. The tranny in a guys 2002 Camry, with 63K on the clock, went out while he was traveling.. He and his Camry got towed to the local Toyota dealer.. Since his car would be tied up for a while, a sharp salesman tried to sell him a new Camry, so he could continue on his trip. The dealership was a dual store, Toyota and Lincoln Mercury. After driving and pricing a V6 Camry, he bought the very first

2006 Mercury Milan sold in the US LOL

mike hunt

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Reply to
Mike Hunter

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