New car!

What happens when 2 people decide to go Sake tasting on a weekend and test drive a few cars along the way? Well, a new car of course!

We had been discussing, living in the Pearl, reducing our car ownership by half. Both to save money and because owning 2 cars when you walk most places is kind of silly. Tia's car is paid off, mine not so much (about 3 years left of payments). I liked the utility of Tia's car (a 2006 Subaru outback), but not the way it drives (kind of sluggish and soft) and conversely Tia hated the way my little Rabbit handled (much more 'rough' for lack of a better term). So, the wise move would have been to sell my car and to keep her car. What we wanted to do, however, was to find a car we would both be satisfied with. So, the big key was getting rid of my car and her car for fair market value and finding something that met both our wants (needs?) while dropping our monthly payment below what we are paying on my car now. In that regard, we were successful.

We initially test drove a Volvo c30, an Audi A3, and a VW GTI. We both disliked the GTI (far too rough riding), found the Audi a bit too refined (read: adult), and adored the quirkly styling and supple yet sporty ride of the Volvo. The downside was that the Volvo is, while somewhat polarizing stylistically, quite high in demand. They are not willing to bend much on the price and, once you add the niceties to it, you are darn near $30K. We decided to seek out a slightly used one. What we found is that they are indeed quite rare. We did locate a nice 2008 with less than 4K miles, but they were offering us almost nothing in trade for my car or Tia's. Basically we would have had to finance our way out of it. Being the researchy type that I am, I knew that was patently ridiculous. Dealer trade-in should have netted us about $7-800 dollars. Not much, but not upside down. Private sale, we would have netted another $12-$1500. Long story short, the numbers weren't adding up.

We then decided to test drive the Ford Fusion Sport and SEL, which we both disliked both in styling and in ride. We looked at some Subies, but none really thrilled us. We debated the Nissan Altima coupe as well, but we scared off by the price (also near $30K) and weren't sure about a 2 door car. So, we ambled over to the Mazda dealership to look at the Mazda 6 and ended up not liking the look enough to drive it, but really liked the Mazda 3 hatchback. Ended up driving it, and really finding it a nice happy medium. It was sporty, but not overly rough. Spacious, but not overly large. Functional hatchback, but all sorts of fun bells and whistles like dual climate control, IPOD interface, Bluetooth and heated leather...........all for much less than we were going to spend on the C30 without any of those things.

Tia is a tough TOUGH negotiator (and it helped that the Mazda 3 is more plentiful and near the end of the model year), so we even got the price we wanted both for the car we bought and for the two cars we traded in........always ready to walk if the numbers didn't match up to our expectations. Plus, Mazda is running a 0% financing deal. So, ultimately, we didn't save any money per se over our original plan of keeping the paid off car, but we did end up dropping our monthly payment under $180/mo, getting down to the one car, and saving money on our car insurance. All told we will 'save' about $200 a month, which is pretty nice considering the new car is nicer than either of our old ones.

Can't wait to Zoom Zoom around. But, of course, I still prefer my commute to be on foot.