Friday, April 17, 2009

New Car Shopping

Now that we're over the shock that we are in fact going to have to buy a new car (frankly, I got over that a long time ago; talking to my Father about potential new cars got me all jazzed up), it's time to go out and actually do some test driving!
The first thing we're going to do, though, is head over to Car Max to get an idea of what they'd give us for the BMW. That way, we'll be better armed when we go to the dealers and hear what they might give us as a trade-in for it. Poor thing; it's not in terrible shape by a long shot but she's getting a little tattered around her (still very elegant) edges. Small things like a few chips in the paint (from rocks flying up from the road) and the interior console (where you put travel mugs and such) is peeling a bit. But, hey, she's almost 10 years old and has been through quite a bit. We're hoping to get something fair. She's a BMW, has less than 150,000 miles (I think closer to 110,000; I'm not sure since I haven't driven her in almost four years) and still looks nice when she's cleaned up.
Anyway, after Car Max, we plan on looking at three cars (I weeded the list my Father gave me as potentials down to these three):
After doing extensive research on-line on all three (and reading reviews Father pulled for me from his myriad of car magazines), any of these three would be a fine automobile to own. Suffice it to say, we'd lux up the Mazda 6 to its utmost capacity. Both the Hyundai Genesis and the Cadillac are already fairly luxed as a standard but we might add a bit to them, depending on what is on the lot. At least on-line, the Mazda and the Hyundai are coming in price-wise within a few thousand of one another (the Mazda being the cheaper of the two). The Cadillac, understandably, is more than the Hyundai, but, with my dad's GM discount and all of the incentives GM is offering now in general, we might be able to get its price closer to the Hyundai's than you'd expect.
The most important thing, though, even over the price, is how they drive and ride. Going into this upcoming experience, I am trying to be very objective and not bias myself towards one car over the other two.
Anyone care to take a stab at what you think we'll end up with? Take the poll!
I'll be back later on today with an update :-)
Mrs. B

1 comment:

George and Jean said...

We're partial to Cadillacs and have been very satisfied with the 8 we've had. And the service is superb.