My 50 MPG story

[El Kapitan]

in the Vancouver area we have been "warned" that they are going to jack up the price of gas by 8 cents/ltr (30 cents/gal) in time for the long weekend because of an expected increase in demand. What a racket. I am grateful for my Mirage in times such as this, although to be honest, electric might be the next step.

[MetroMPG]

El Kap: I've been driving my friend's 2018 plug-in Prius this week. I can do all my local driving on electric power. The EPA range is 40 km / 25 miles, but you can stretch way past that if you drive it gently and open the windows instead of using A/C. I got it up to 63 km on my first charge (no crazy hypermiling). And when the charge runs out, it's a 55+ mpg hybrid for longer drives. Cost about 3 Mirages to buy it, though!!

[El Kapitan]

I took a look at those and the initial cost did indeed turn out to be a little off-putting. it is a great concept though.

[Loren]

Keep your eyes open. I'm sort of kicking myself for not buying a Fiat 500e when I saw about 4 of them on Carvana a few months ago for $7-8000 each! (they're $32k new, and these were very low mileage 2-year-old cars)

People still have range anxiety, so the used market on full electrics is full of bargains.

[HitShane]

Keep your eyes open. I'm sort of kicking myself for not buying a Fiat 500e when I saw about 4 of them on Carvana a few months ago for $7-8000 each! (they're $32k new, and these were very low mileage 2-year-old cars)

People still have range anxiety, so the used market on full electrics is full of bargains.

They can't even give away Fiats where I live. Probably because they spend more time in the garage than they do in the driveway. They had a whole row of those Renegades brand new selling for like $12,000

[Loren]

Yeah, one of the things that spooked me on the 500e is that they were only sold in California. So, being in Florida... nobody here would be trained on them, and would likely have never seen one. If it had a problem, it could get ugly.

The other problem for me is that it didn't have quite enough range for what I want to do with it. But, for a pure city car... it would be great fun!

[AssassinTime14]

Hey guys this thread made it into the mirage forum update email!
This is great news! I'm so glad that my story has accumulated such a large amount of us talking about fuel economy and the best way to do it! Thanks again for everyone's support and tips!

[fc321]

I wouldnt buy a Fiat for even $5000 new. I would disregard the sticker price of 32k (its a too much high price because they are trying to paint the car as if it had some sort of Italian luxury like Ducati motorcycle or Ferrari).

But the sad truth is they are being built and designed by Chrysler (bottom of the heap of American car companies).

They are inferior in quality to the Japanese Mirage in many ways and very unreliable. American car companies are phasing out sub-compacts because they do not sell well in USA in our current economic climate. Its a bad investment.

[HitShane]

Actually you've got that backwards. Fiat is making the Chrysler's they bought Chrysler. Chrysler is no longer an American company.

Also the Mirage isn't made in Japan and it uses a German engine that is produced by a company that was previously owned by Guess Who, Chrysler.

[Loren]

I knew the 3A and 4A series engines were a joint venture with Chrysler, and saw use in some Smart cars that were built on a Mitsu platform, but I wasn't aware of a German connection. Educate me.