Quote:
Originally Posted by Brando
And yes, the maintenance costs on those hybrids becomes astronomical when you have to replace a ton of batteries, flush two coolant systems, do two oil changes, etc etc etc.
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You have some misconceptions about hybrids.
- There is a large battery pack, warranteed for 100K miles, in the real world they (talking Prius here, don't know about others) routinely go 150K+ on the original battery. Because the system is designed to keep the battery in roughly the middle third of its charge range, it is never fully discharged or fully charged, and thus has a very long service life. Most people won't replace the battery for the life of the car.
- There is one internal combustion engine, thus one coolant system, one oil system. It is maintained like any other gas motor - change the oil every several thousand miles, flush the coolant more or less never. The gas engine only runs part of the time, it shuts off when you have lifted off throttle (coasting, stoplights) so it is pretty unstressed.