DR a lady in Montana I believe, got one milioln miles on her Corolla delivering mail. Only normal maintenance. Toyota took it and gave her a new one. Will replacing your battery be called normal maintenance? That battery replacement cost will eat into your fuel savings and the Corolla most likely was not purchased with a subsidy.I am not against the Prius or Volt type vehicles, just the unrealistic hype.nc, I never gave one thought to a Prius. I laughed at them like everyone else. However, pumping $600+/mo in gas in her Dodge Dakota (very good truck) was getting old, not to mention frequent tires and brakes replacement. All that needs to be added to maintenance costs. Sorry to say, but every American made 4 cyl failed under mail delivery rigor. The Honda CRV worked quite well, but still not a true 4 4 so deep snow made it difficult. A major problem with finding a mail route vehicle is most carriers still like LH drive, at least that's what my wife tells me. Nearly every vehicle nowadays has a console that won't allow the driver to cross over from the passenger side to the brake/gas pedals. I looked around for getting a new vehicle, checked all the hybrids out; virtually every one had the console shift. On happenstance I found the PriusChat forum and was shocked that someone was using a Prius. At first I thought it was a joke. I had the same worries about battery life etc, but found out the battery is the least of worries on the Toyota Prius. In fact, there are quite a few folks using the Prius for mail delivery. They recommended getting the oldest highest mileage Prius I could find and not worry about the battery. My wife ended up buying a 2008 model with low mileage which allows removal of the console giving full access across the seats. 2009 and up ..completely filled up with non-removable console. All the stereotypes about the Prius turned out to be totally wrong. As for the milioln mile Corrolla, well, even a blind squirrel will eventually find a nut. I owned a 1989 Corrolla, the last carburetor version made; great car. The best mileage car I ever owned was a 1984 Dodge Colt with the economy stick- 45-50 mpg was common. Something changed after that model year as I notice even today the so-called sub compacts get crappy mileage compared to the 25 year+ old models. Auto manufacturers are missing out on a huge market; 400,000 rural mail carriers. It's getting near impossible to find one that suits the purpose because of the console. Even trucks are doing away with the column shifts ..personally I detest console shifters in a truck. Anyway, it would hard pressed to convince me hybrids are a waste of money now that I own one and see the fuel bills be cut by 3-4x, at least for what my wife uses it for.

Ah, you hit on a very interesting point the car seats. For anynoe to safely fit 3 car seats and/or boosters in a back seat, they need the big vehicles. We only deal with 2, in a large station wagon (looks like an SUV, but is classed and meets requirements for cars), I can't even pick up a friend, neice, or nephew because of the car seats. There is no room, and there is a reason why many parents, Mom's especially, are stuck having to buy the SUV's and Minivans. In my state they have to be in car seats until 8, a LONG time.