Doubling down or reVolting

It’s been a scary, hectic week, but all’s well that ends well.

As you may recall, when my Lexus ES300 was totaled, Bonnie got a pre-owned 2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and I inherited her old Lexus. She loved having an SUV again, and really loved having a hybrid. Well, earlier in the week, she called to say her car would not start. I was at work and didn’t know anything about how to jump start a hybrid, so I started searching the web.

Immediately, the search results for “2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid won’t start,” returned tons of complaints from Highlander owners about the power inverter going out, after the end of the warranty. Worse, there had been a recall issued (we had received a preliminary notice) but some were not covered by the recall (ours was not) and still failed. Even worse than that, the replacement cost was $9,000! I found the information I was looking for on jump starting and got that to Bonnie who, with the help of a neighbor, got her car running. I also had her add water to the battery. Once she was on the road, she called and I told her about what I had found on the web.

Usually, when we buy pre-owned cars, it is to save on the purchase price and get the extended warranty. The Highlander, bought from our Lexus dealer, had no warranty, since it was not a Lexus. Now we were a bit frightened. What could we do if a $9,000 repair bill reared its ugly head? The whole reason we bought the Highlander was to get rid of a Lexus, whose repair bills were costing us a fortune!

I asked her to take her Highlander to a battery store and have them check the 12 volt battery. I thought, if that was the issue, it was inexpensive to replace and we would both breathe a little easier. Unfortunately, the battery technician said the 12 volt battery was fine. That ratcheted the fear up a notch… or ten!

This was truly a terrifying development for us. As I mentioned before, we were not planning on buying a car when mine got rear-ended. We didn’t really have room in our budget for a car but we had to get one, out of necessity. The death of the Lexus put us in an even worse position of having two car payments, but at least the Volt was very affordable due to the lease and fuel savings.

The very next morning, Bonnie’s Highlander again would not start. I walked her through connecting a trickle charger to the battery and we were able to get it going again, but we were starting to freak out a bit. Finally, Bonnie said, “Why don’t we take the Highlander over to the Chevy dealer (Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine, Texas) and see what replacing the Highlander with a Volt would cost?”

I was floored. Bonnie loves riding up high in an SUV. It never occurred to me she’d consider a Volt. Apparently all my raging enthusiasm for my Volt was affecting her.

So, we went to see Kevin Reese, our sales guy, and looked at Volts. The ever frugal Bonnie did not want to get the color I liked the best, because it was a $1,000 upgrade. She wanted a plain white Volt, equipped identically to mine. Unfortunately, the dealership had some bad news for us. We were upside-down on the Highlander. We were not going to get as low a payment on her Volt as I had gotten on mine. By the way, Kevin was a great, low-pressure salesperson. I hate buying cars and he made the process enjoyable. You can reach him at his cell phone, 214-668-8692. Tell him Buzz & Bonnie sent you!

Now it was time for me to do some calculating…

We had consistently gotten 27 MPG out of the Highlander, so we could easily see, based on my real-world Volt results how to compare the cost of operation of the two vehicles. Next, since we were making a payment of the Highlander, it wasn’t like we were adding a payment where there was none, so we could compare the monthly payment of leasing a Volt to purchasing the Highlander. Finally, we could compare insurance costs of the two vehicles. Our bottom line was if we could get the Volt and, although absorbing the negative equity on the Highlander, end up with a lower monthly cost of ownership (leasership??) we would pull the trigger and get a second Volt.

It was close. Since we had just gotten a car payment, we went through a different lender, whose interest rate wasn’t quite as good as the rate on my Volt. As mentioned before, a portion of the lease payment was for the negative equity on the Highlander. Even the insurance was a bit higher than the policy on my Volt, because there was some coverage that only had to be purchased on one car, but applied to both and that was being charged to the Highlander. That coverage would have to be shifted to Bonnie’s Volt, making her insurance a bit higher than mine.

The advantage was getting rid of the $9,000 sword of Damocles hanging over our heads and driving a vehicle that was even greener than the Highlander. The total cost of ownership for the Volt beat the Highlander’s by about $15 per month.

We pulled the trigger.