Tech & Biz

Consumer Reports 2009: It's a Small Car World After All

by Jordan Yerman | March 5, 2009 at 07:49 am

700 views | 21 Recommendations | 6 comments

Consumer Reports released its 2009 auto issue, and it's all about value. Not just low sticker price, but cost of ownership over five years compared with overall performance.

Best overall: Toyota Prius Touring. I can hear Ed Begley, Jr. Laughing from here, but, with an average cost of $26,250 over five years, he's right: the green-ness of these higher-efficiency vehicles has become a side issue to lower economic impact. Check out the article below if you like Honda Civic EX, Toyota Camrys (Camries?), Hyundai Santa Fes, and their ilk.

Small is in this year: The winners across all categories are among the more diminutive in their respective classes.

Recession or not, sometimes your car just cannot make it another mile, and is more expensive to repair than the value of the car warrants.

Here’s the formula that we applied to more than 300 vehicles. First, we divided each car’s owner-cost estimate by its overall road-test score to get, what we call, its “bucks per bang” cost; or the cost of each point in its test score. Then, we filtered out any models that don’t have better than an average reliability rating.

Using this formula, the vehicles that rise to the top are good all-around packages that did well in our road tests, have relatively low owner costs, and have very good or excellent reliability records. In other words, they give you the most for your money.

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Toyota Prius Body Side Graphic Kit 2 - Touring Edition Badging

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Toyota Prius Body Side Graphic Kit 2 - Touring Edition Badging

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Paschen

at 08:00 on March 5th, 2009

The larger number of car here in Japan are 600cc with 2 to 4 cylinder like a motor bike engine. Rather 3000cc average of North American car with 8 to 12 cylinder.

Purchasing cost at around $6000.00.

Edmund Jenks

at 17:42 on March 5th, 2009

Top Story - Motorsports

(TAG, Please)

mtammas

at 20:26 on March 5th, 2009

I'm thinking of getting a car, my first vehicle purchase ever! The Toyoto Prius is on my check-it-out list. Thank you for this information.

PIM of SPAIN

at 01:39 on March 7th, 2009

Hi mtammas, just to offer you a wider scope on yr vehicle purchase, look at:

http://www.businessweek.com/blogs/in_your_face/ and

http://my.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/hybrid-hype

Much is written about tailpipe CO2 that should be reduced we even should change our gasoline or diesel cars for full electric-hybrids. Electric cars are the future is stated everywhere who is in or outside the car business. This is pure nonsense.

Hope this information will help your further.

wkr Pim

rearviewed (not verified)

at 16:37 on March 18th, 2009

That's what I noticed with cars manufactured nowadays. Some cars are more expensive to repair than the value of the car warrants.

PIM of SPAIN

at 01:19 on June 4th, 2009

Buy a diesel engine driven car, minimum on maintenance, minimum on CO2 emission, maximum on millage. Much more economic than all the hybrids hypes, that have to have replaced batteries every six years, causing additional environmental waste.