Anchorage Daily News

Let's make the math here as simple as possible. Say you own a 10-year-old Ford Explorer SUV that gets 15 miles per gallon. It's paid off, but it's not going to live forever.

So you decide to park it next to your garage -- where one day it might be called upon if you ever need to tow a trailer or wallow through a huge snowstorm -- and you buy a new 46-mpg Toyota Prius hybrid (MSR: $22,875) instead. How much will you save at the gas pump?

Assuming you drive 15,000 miles a year and average 45 mpg, and assuming that gas in Anchorage continues to cost $4.35 a gallon (which might be wishful thinking), the calculator says you'll save $242 a month in fuel.

That won't be as much as your new car payment, but it might get you halfway there. In fact it's a fuel savings of $2,900 a year. Keep the Prius for 10 years, as you did the Explorer, and it's a savings of $29,000 -- more than the cost of the car.

Math like that has some Alaskans who've been stung by soaring gas prices lately flocking to Kendall Toyota in downtown Anchorage, where Prius sales have jumped 10-fold since the first of the year, according to the dealership.

But it's also prompted others to check out other high gas mileage options -- like the 24-mpg Volkswagen Rabbit, or the 28-mpg Ford Focus, or the 31-mpg Honda Fit -- capable of saving drivers $1,000 or more a year if they replace a gas hog.

Rick Morrsion, owner of the Morrison Auto Group, which sells Volkswagens and Audis off Gambell Street, says sales there are up 22 percent this year -- thanks largely to higher demand for fuel-efficient Rabbits and Jettas and the Audi A4.

"We're seeing a movement," Morrison said. "I can't tell you it's a landslide toward small cars just yet, but it's definitely a movement."

TRADING DOWN

Chuck Martin, general manager of Continental Honda/Acura on Old Seward Highway, says the lot there has sold all its 42-mpg Honda Civic Hybrids, as well as its gas-sipping Civic sedans and Honda Fits.

"I had a whole line of hybrids out here until the gas hit $4 a gallon," Martin said. "Then they all flew out of here. ... I'm out of (fuel-efficient) cars. I've got no Civics in stock. I have two Accords. My fuel-efficient cars are selling as quick as I can get them."

Mike McKean, general manager at Kendall Toyota (which purchased the Fifth Avenue dealership from Nye Toyota in February), says sales there right now are 97 percent higher than last year, largely due to more and more customers purchasing fuel-efficient cars.

The previous owner reported selling about five or six Priuses a month, McKean said. But in the past 60 days, Kendall has sold about 125, including 50 that are still pending delivery.

"We've had a lot of people trying to trade in their big rigs, their big V-8s, to get into our higher gas mileage cars," he said. "There's definitely been a trend."

Joining that phenomenon on Thursday was Service High School principal Lou Pondolfino, whose 8-year-old Ford Ranger pickup with 120,000 miles runs fine -- but only gets about 16 mpg due to its four-wheel drive option.

So Pondolfino was test-driving a purple-blue Prius with the potential of reducing his annual fuel bill by thousands of dollars.

"I really liked it," he said, later in the day. "It's spacious enough and it's got enough oomph to pass a vehicle when you need to."

That is if you can buy one. Since Kendall currently has no sellable Priuses on its lot -- Pondolfino had to drive the dealer's lone demo -- he could only pay a deposit and add his name to the two- to three-month-long waiting list.

Still the tall, bearded school administrator is happy with the purchase. He figures the money he'll save each month on gas will offset about half of his monthly car payment. So instead of a five- or six-year loan he'll try to shorten the pay-off period to three years or four.

"I basically get it a lot cheaper with the money I save for gas," Pondolfino said.

DOES IT PAY?

That might make sense for someone who has an old car that's paid off and is ready to buy a new one. But some Alaskans caught in the new-car stampede are making a big mistake, several dealers said. They're trying to trade in big cars that fewer people want to buy right now, and they're suffering some fairly huge losses.

"We're seeing a lot of what we call 'the heavies' coming in -- the half-ton pickups, the three-quarter-ton pickups, your (Chevy) Suburbans, your (Chevy) Tahoes," said Martin, at the Honda dealership. But they're hard to trade in at a decent price.

"That's because every single lot in this town has an over-abundance of them."

Worst of all, said Morrison, are people who want to buy a new car -- supposedly to save some money by buying one with a little better fuel mileage -- when they haven't even paid off their previous car loan.

"We see some people come in who will be as much as $10,000 to $15,000 upside down," Morrison said. "In other words they owe that much more on the car they're trying to trade in. So what a lot of them will do ... they try to move that loss forward on their next loan.

"My suggestion to them is: 'Slow down a little bit. ...' The panic buying is where I think a lot of people are making a big mistake."

Find George Bryson online at adn.com/contact/gbryson or call 257-4318.

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