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1 June 2004
New car shopping
1 June 2004 16:07My somewhat contradictory criteria:
Size should be a small sedan (as small as possible while still holding 4 people comfortably and have enough storage that I can use it for camping trips).
It should be as environmentally friendly as possible – I won’t consider anything getting less than 35 mpg on the highway.
It should be fun to drive, both in the city, and during long-distance road trips.
It should be reasonably priced – limit is approx. $25,000, obviously the cheaper the better. I get a significant discount on Fords and other Ford owned brands.
It should be reliable – the main reason I’m looking at new vs. old.
The leading contenders so far:
Toyota Prius the obvious choice on environmental factors, though it’s near the upper end of my price range. Probably would win on reliability too. Unfortunately it’s not available until the fall and I’m not sure I want to wait that long.
Ford Focus and Mazda 3, either of which could be had for about ½ the price of a Prius and would be available immediately. Focus also has super-low emissions.
VW Jetta, included because I want to compare a diesel – mpg are almost as good as the Prius and it could be converted to run on vegetable oil, which would just be cool.
I chose these cars based on reviews from http://www.edmunds.com/ and http://www.autoweb.com/ - all rave reviews from both sites. I plan to go out for test drives in all of these in the next couple of weeks. Driving will probably be the deciding factor. I’m not going to buy something I don’t like driving.
So comments from the peanut gallery? Any opinions on these cars? Any other cars I’m really missing out on that I should be including in here?
One of the obvious contenders, the Honda Civic, is not included because I already know what it’s like to drive it and I’d like something better (or at least the same, in which case the Ford or Mazda would win on price).
Size should be a small sedan (as small as possible while still holding 4 people comfortably and have enough storage that I can use it for camping trips).
It should be as environmentally friendly as possible – I won’t consider anything getting less than 35 mpg on the highway.
It should be fun to drive, both in the city, and during long-distance road trips.
It should be reasonably priced – limit is approx. $25,000, obviously the cheaper the better. I get a significant discount on Fords and other Ford owned brands.
It should be reliable – the main reason I’m looking at new vs. old.
The leading contenders so far:
Toyota Prius the obvious choice on environmental factors, though it’s near the upper end of my price range. Probably would win on reliability too. Unfortunately it’s not available until the fall and I’m not sure I want to wait that long.
Ford Focus and Mazda 3, either of which could be had for about ½ the price of a Prius and would be available immediately. Focus also has super-low emissions.
VW Jetta, included because I want to compare a diesel – mpg are almost as good as the Prius and it could be converted to run on vegetable oil, which would just be cool.
I chose these cars based on reviews from http://www.edmunds.com/ and http://www.autoweb.com/ - all rave reviews from both sites. I plan to go out for test drives in all of these in the next couple of weeks. Driving will probably be the deciding factor. I’m not going to buy something I don’t like driving.
So comments from the peanut gallery? Any opinions on these cars? Any other cars I’m really missing out on that I should be including in here?
One of the obvious contenders, the Honda Civic, is not included because I already know what it’s like to drive it and I’d like something better (or at least the same, in which case the Ford or Mazda would win on price).