I see that McGrath is a sponsor of this forum which is great, some of our executives have leased cars with them; I myself am further out in the NW 'burbs outside of Chicago so other Lexus dealers are actually closer for sales & service for me (we have 10 Lexus dealers in IL; 2 outside of Chicago). I've owned many makes and models in the past but never a Lexus so this would be a new experience for me. We currently have 4 vehicles and 3 drivers under one roof ('99 Miata, '08 smart coupe, '06 Mazda3 GT 5-door and '09 VW Routan) so the CT would replace the Mazda3 hatch (primarily wife's car but also typically our weekend errand car when it's too hot/cold for the Miata or we're in need to pick up big stuff which is the Routan's job). Besides the CT, I'm on a waiting list for the Nissan LEAF and am awaiting the arrival of the Focus EV -- neither seem to be coming soon to our area and as my wife expressed a bit of 'range anxiety' with EV's (even though with only a 7-mile daily commute) I'm now starting to think a hybrid may be the way to go.
Had a chance to test drive a CT over this past weekend and came away fairly impressed -- even though it's a bit smaller (both inside and out) as compared to the Mazda3 hatch; it rides better, has more comfortable seats, has a few whiz-bang hybrid tech options built-in and of course there is that almost double the gas mileage! The CT I drove actually didn't have all the options my Mazda3 has (no nav, no leather, no rain sensing wipers) but appeared to have superior heated seats (how hot do these get? -- the Mazda3 is a simple on-off) and I did like the feel of the NuLuxe seats (these were in Caramel - kind of like baseball glove color -- unfortunately my wife didn't care for them -- thought they were too orange).
As this vehicle can't really be much bigger than the Mazda3 (we have an offset tandem-style garage, without switching/trading out different cars) our choices are limited and I'm sorry but I've never been impressed with the Prius (although I do know the CT has that powertrain) and much less so the new Honda Insight so a CT may be an ideal choice. I plan to peruse this forum in search of why go with a CT over another car (hybrid, EV or otherwise) but may end up waiting until 2012 when other options may come out.
Among all the cars we've owned we did have a '98 New Beetle TDI (diesel) that was a mileage champ (wife loved it) but Chicago winter's can be tough on them -- plus even now, using diesel pumps is still a messy issue but the exhaust smell has been cleaned up a lot since even our '98 -- one car that gets compared is of course Audi's A3 TDI so will be sure to test drive that as well. Again, the issue I run into is the very short runs the wife makes, I think a hybrid or EV would be ideal as it's so short she may even run mostly on electric juice but would be interesting to see how this works in real life -- I realize that the CT isn't a plug-in so perhaps its just wishful thinking and no a Chevy Volt isn't around here either; still find that one not quite worth the asking price versus a Lexus but would be curious if others who had access to a Volt cross shopped it with a CT.
Had a chance to test drive a CT over this past weekend and came away fairly impressed -- even though it's a bit smaller (both inside and out) as compared to the Mazda3 hatch; it rides better, has more comfortable seats, has a few whiz-bang hybrid tech options built-in and of course there is that almost double the gas mileage! The CT I drove actually didn't have all the options my Mazda3 has (no nav, no leather, no rain sensing wipers) but appeared to have superior heated seats (how hot do these get? -- the Mazda3 is a simple on-off) and I did like the feel of the NuLuxe seats (these were in Caramel - kind of like baseball glove color -- unfortunately my wife didn't care for them -- thought they were too orange).
As this vehicle can't really be much bigger than the Mazda3 (we have an offset tandem-style garage, without switching/trading out different cars) our choices are limited and I'm sorry but I've never been impressed with the Prius (although I do know the CT has that powertrain) and much less so the new Honda Insight so a CT may be an ideal choice. I plan to peruse this forum in search of why go with a CT over another car (hybrid, EV or otherwise) but may end up waiting until 2012 when other options may come out.
Among all the cars we've owned we did have a '98 New Beetle TDI (diesel) that was a mileage champ (wife loved it) but Chicago winter's can be tough on them -- plus even now, using diesel pumps is still a messy issue but the exhaust smell has been cleaned up a lot since even our '98 -- one car that gets compared is of course Audi's A3 TDI so will be sure to test drive that as well. Again, the issue I run into is the very short runs the wife makes, I think a hybrid or EV would be ideal as it's so short she may even run mostly on electric juice but would be interesting to see how this works in real life -- I realize that the CT isn't a plug-in so perhaps its just wishful thinking and no a Chevy Volt isn't around here either; still find that one not quite worth the asking price versus a Lexus but would be curious if others who had access to a Volt cross shopped it with a CT.
) so I never really looked into an A3. For the price though the CT200h will get better MPG at almost the same price and since I plan on keeping this car for a very long time the reliability of VW/Audi would have me worried.
