As you probably know, for the past six months I’ve been commuting between Lincoln and Omaha for a total of about 110 miles, five days a week. Lots of miles on the Smart Car later, it was well overdue for it’s 50,000 mile check-up and oil change. So, this past Wednesday I tried to call Smart Center of Omaha to schedule dropping off my car. Turns out, the Smart Center of Omaha has closed and the closest Smart Car dealership is now in Des Moines, a six-hour round trip. Never mind the fact that just two weeks ago I was actually in Des Moines.
Yesterday, Mary and I were discussing options and the idea of looking at trading in the Smart Car for a Prius came up. A coworker of Mary’s had recommended her guy at the local Toyota dealership and we decided to head over to see him this morning.
Four hours later, we left with a used 2013 Prius 2 with just 18,000 miles on it for $4000 less than they were asking for it. No, we didn’t plan to say goodbye to the Smart Car so quickly, but we found a deal and we took it.
This is not to say that I wouldn’t recommend a Smart Car to others. I loved that car. It got 40MPG and handled great. But between needing to put premium gas into it and a future with six-hour trips just to get a tune-up, never mind if something actually went wrong with it, just wasn’t something we could live with.
Now with the Prius I’m getting 50MPG and the ability to buy cheap gas, even with a car payment, we’re actually ahead of where we were with the Smart Car.
