dang I hate to threadjack:
I had a prius, I paid $10,000.00 to own it for 1.5 years (full financed and full coverage insurance) I put 46,000 miles on it. we figured doing the math, we saved $600.00 on fuel costs over a car we owned outright. We could have saved more money on fuel, as I got an average of 76mpg driving it, while my wifes average was 52mpg. After some financial issues, prius gone, I bought a 78 rabbit that was salvage due to a blown 1.5 engine, then 1.6 swapped for $75 bucks, replaced black fuel lines with clear, replaced cracked clear found by using new clear and seeing bubbles. At one point I was pushing my rabbit and pumping out a little soot, a guy in a full size chevy extra cab pickup with an empty bed and only his seat filled yelled at me to get my polluting piece of crap off the road and quit destroying our planet. I followed him to the next fuel station (he looked worried that I was going to cause him harm) and explained to him how the carbon footprint of a vehicle works. My car used minimal plastics in making it, has the option of burning carbon neutral fuel, puts less wear and tear on our roads then his heavy and improperly (unloaded) used truck, and will probably get 5x the mileage out of a single chassis compared to his truck and then will be fully recyclable when done. He didn't say ANYTHING, I left on my merry way. little did I know that my car might not get 5x as many miles on its chassis, as a fire would later to damage that forced me to sell my car in favor of an 89 toyota camry with 189,000 miles on it that gets 27mpg highway (cost me less then 1 months prius costs) that I have now owned for three years, Ive put tires on it (consumable part) a battery and a radiator, overall savings over stupid prius $20,000 dollars -$1200.00 in fuel savings $18800.00 saved by NOT owning a prius. Nect cheap car project, 89 golf 1.8 for $250 bucks, and 1.6 na probably adding $1250 to the price. still saving a bunch over stupid prius.
Sorry about your bad luck with stupid prii and the threadjack, looks like you still have a good line of Vdubs in the driveway and glad you walked away with injuries that healed