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Business browser Date published: 8/10/2008 By Bill Freehling THE BEST TIME The same argument could be made for vehicles. In both cases, blindly following the crowd could be hazardous to your financial health. These days, everyone seems to want a Toyota Prius or some type of fuel-efficient car, while car dealers have to come up with clever deals to sell SUVs. Obviously there are good reasons for this trend. As fuel has crept up to the $4 mark, SUVs getting 20 miles to a gallon look a lot less attractive than gas sippers getting two or three times that amount. That doesn't even consider the environmental issues attached to SUV ownership. Setting aside environmental and other non-financial considerations, does the conventional wisdom about SUVs make sense these days? That is, are people doing the right thing for their net worth when they trade in an SUV for a sharp discount to buy In stock market terms, that's buying high and selling low (unless you think gas will keep getting even more expensive, in which case you could be getting in and out at the right time). Fortunately, a new tool on Edmunds.com makes the decision a lot easier. The Web site has a feature called the "Gas Guzzler for Gas Sipper" trade-in calculator. I read about it in an article on this topic in last Sunday's New York Times. The URL for the site is edmunds.com/calcula tors/gas-guzzler.html. It allows you to type in the cars you want to buy and sell, the mileage you drive each month, your ZIP and more. As the driver of a 1996 Jeep Cherokee that gets about 20 miles to a gallon, I have thought about trading in my car for a more fuel-efficient model. But that would be a pretty dumb move assuming gas costs $4 a gallon, according to the Edmunds.com calculator.
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