TOYOTA PRIUS
I purchased a 2007 Toyota Prius hybrid in the spring of 2008. I loved it. However, Toyota told a big lie in their publishing the Prius' gas mileage figures. They said it got 60 mpg in the city and 50 mpg on the highway. Good luck! There is no way they could get this kind of performance in the city without their test track being all downhill.
I drove my Prius extremely conservatively, rarely exceeding the speed limit–which pissed off people behind me. I accelerated slowly–which also pissed off the people behind me. And I decelerated slowly, which further aggravated those behind me, the majority of whom roared around me and then slammed on their brakes at the red light ahead. I've been passed by just about everything on the road and I was only getting 41 mpg in the city, not the 60 mpg Toyota advertised. And I was not using the air conditioner.
I reset the mpg feature and drove it like everyone else drives in the city. The mpg dropped to 27 mpg - which was only 9 mpg better than my 3/4 ton diesel truck got in the city. If Toyota had said that the Prius gets 45 mpg or even 50 mpg in the city, I might forgive them. But actual results are not even close to advertised. If I didn't like everything else about the car, I'd have returned it to Toyota as a lemon. False advertising really pisses me off.
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Postscript: I emailed the dealership twice about this problem and they acknowledged my email but never replied. Then I traded in my Prius on a Sienna. I get less than half the gas mileage that the Prius did, but my Sienna does what they said it would do, and it hasn't had any problems with sudden acceleration. But I do miss the good gas mileage.