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Toyota Corollas and Honda Civics have become used car gold. Excursions and Tahoes are lepers, sent to live apart from society. As someone who has owned and driven vehicles on both sides of the fuel economy scale, I wanted to spend some time and do a breakdown of actual fuel savings yielded by switching from a Tahoe to a Civic.

First, I used www.fueleconomy.gov to get the combined mileage for both vehicles. The Civic with auto transmission gets 29 MPG compared to the Tahoe that gets 16. If we assume that you drive 10,000 miles per year at $4.25 a gallon, switching from the Tahoe to the Civic will save you $1200 in fuel. In order to achieve this same saving by simply reducing use, you would have to drive the Tahoe only 5,500 miles per year.

Now since fuel economy is only a portion of a vehicles cost, lets take a look at the price for a used Civic and Tahoe on Craigslist, lets say a 2004 with around 50,000 miles on the clock. As of August 14th, 2008 the Civic will cost you around $14,000, the Tahoe has a bit more of a range, but 13-16k is pretty common. I think it is safe to call this one a tie, as shopping around for either car could yield a similar deal.

You get a lot more vehicle with the Tahoe, but the Civic will save you $1200 a year. Now the question becomes, are you ok with packing the family into the Honda and heading down to the river?

For me I think the choice is clear, figure out how to drive fewer miles and get the Tahoe so I can tow my racecar in comfort!