Please help with car shopping!

[diz_girl]

I forgot to mention that my diesel Jetta averages 42 mpg. The new diesel Jettas coming out should have just as good fuel economy as my car, if not better. Diesel Jettas get about 50% better fuel economy than their gasoline counterparts, so although diesel fuel costs about 20-25% more per gallon right now, it still costs less per mile to power my car than a gasoline powered car.

[Ian]

I'd strongly caution against making any rash new car purchases simply to save on gas. And that goes double for buying a hybrid.

It's highly unlikely that, when you take everything into account, you'll end up saving yourself any money. In fact, you'll almost definitely lose quite a bit.

Just factoring in the depreciation hit you'll immediately take on your new car alone means you'll be literally thousands of dollars in the hole right out of the gate.

Put it in perspective ... you gain at most 20 mpg. Say you drive an average of 1,000 miles a month. You're currently getting 15mpg, so you're using about 67 gallons of gas per month. Your new car gets 35 mpg, so in that you'll be using about 29 gallons of gas per month. That works out to be a savings of about $152 a month, assuming $4 a gallon gas.

Even at a very modest depreciation of $4,000 on your new car it will take you about 27 months just to make back that portion of your expenses. Not to mention the fact that you'll be actualizing the depreciation on your current vehicle instead of continuing to spread it out over additional years.

And then you have to factor in the interest you'll be paying on the new car, taxes, title, tag, etc.

Overall I'd have to guess it will take you at least 3 years to recoup your costs.