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davidnI received my driving licence in the post this morning, and it now occupies pride of place next to the existing UK card in my wallet. This new one is reassuringly elaborate, with a shiny seal across the middle and a much better photograph than the one that was taken of me when I was 17, so it makes it feel like it wasn't a huge amount of wasted effort. It's still sort of difficult to believe that I have it - not just because I'm suddenly going into a buying process, but because it represents this large step towards normalcy that I'd previously accepted that I just didn't have here.
Our aim is now to find a small, reliable, efficient car to get for ourselves, in a price range of about $15,000-$20,000 - we're open to both new and used, apart from the models like the Fiesta where used cars do not yet exist. So I completely failed to spend my weekend relaxing from the turmoil of the last month as I had planned - yesterday, Whitney and I both went out to look at Toyotas and Volkswagens, and on Sunday, with her on the way to California, I was suddenly called by one of the Nissan dealers I'd sent an email to, encouraging me to come down and test drive them. Here is the entire summary of my thoughts so far.
Toyota Yaris - I honestly thought that this one was going to be at the top of our list and an easy buy for us, and it was the first that we went to see, but when we got to look inside one at the dealership, it instantly felt really cheaply made. There are a lot of bare plastic surfaces on the armrest and central console, and the driving position is uncomfortable - I'm a seat-all-the-way-forward kind of person because of my slightly dachshund-like legs, and in this position, the base of the unit for the steering wheel gets in the way of your knee. Instead of having the dials in front of you, they're placed away over in the centre of the console for reasons I can't explain. And the boot of the hatchback sort of nullifies its own usefulness by being too small to fit anything at all unless you put the back seats down. Despite our expectations, the sedan version is slightly better.
Toyota Prius - This is the most expensive car we've looked at, but as it's a hybrid engine, the fuel savings are (theoretically) astronomical. The interior is comfortable while still showing off with slidey space-age designs, and the only thing I found strange was the completely inadequate gearstick. (While I'm on the subject, why is Reverse forwards and Drive backwards? This never made sense to me.) A physical disadvantage that I found with it is that the distance between the driver and the front of the car is... enormous - it's one of the longest-nosed cars I've ever seen. It doesn't seem particularly unusual in a photograph, but inside, the dashboard is extremely deep. I've talked to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wolfekko and his other mechanically-inclined friends, and have learned a couple of drawbacks - that in reality the fuel savings are not that significant compared to smaller petrol-engine cars unless you're always driving in busy city traffic, and that maintenance is extremely costly, having to go to a specialist dealer instead of any old garage.
Volkswagen Jetta - We looked at one of these at the almost deserted Volkswagen dealership down the road, as Whitney's mother had told us it sounded like a good small car. She must have been looking at a reduced photocopy, because it's the size of a bus. We left without anybody noticing we were there.
Nissan Versa - This one was the model of car that was our favourite to hire when we lived in Brookline, and it drove very well both then and when I took one out for a test drive. The dealership only had two of them, both used and not yet cleaned, and I didn't get to try the hatchback, because after walking out to the car park, the salesman couldn't find it! During the test drive, someone in front of me suddenly stopped dead for no reason in the middle of traffic, so the brakes got a good test and scored highly with me. According to the car reviews on US News, they have issues with safety and reliability, though, which are things that obviously seem fairly important. I've got another couple of offers on Versas (Versae?) from other dealers as well, and might try to pit them against each other if we go down this route.
Honda Fit - I had just intended to look quickly at the Honda dealership on my way back from the Nissan place, but I ended up going for a second test drive that day. This was pretty much an afterthought on our list, but after driving it, it went right up to near the top of the candidates in my mind - it's actually what I thought the Yaris would be like. It's small but doesn't feel cramped inside, is smooth and comfortable, has the speedometer and readouts in the right place, and the steering wheel is easily adjustable to a much better place where it doesn't obstruct your knee. It also has as standard a USB port on the passenger side, where you can plug in your mobile/music device and then control it from the wheel. I know that shouldn't impress me so much when buying a car, but it does.
I'm slightly wary about this one, though, because Honda Man can tell I'm interested - he asked me if there was anything to do to get me to name a price and buy that day, and I had to say no to him twice. While sitting at his desk going through the likely price and offers, he was on the phone to his boss chuckling away at unheard things like he was Noel Edmonds on Deal or No Deal talking to the Banker, and he kept relaying questions that shouldn't seem as loaded as they did, like which British football team I supported. Anyway, I'm going to look at this with Whitney again and see if she likes it as well.
Ford Fiesta - In America, this is a new car - I would comment once again on how America seems only to get good things many years behind other parts of the world, if it wasn't really a completely different car from the one that I drove in Britain. This is looking like the other of the most likely choices and it ranks as number 1 on the above site which says you absolutely cannot go wrong with it, though we're still to actually go and see and test one. Most of the ones that are available at the local dealer seem to be manual-transmission, and I'm not sure why I feel so reluctant about that seeing as that's what I learned on - I suppose I just assumed that every car was an automatic here, and that the availability of manual gears puts yet another choice on to the pile. It's also a little bit more expensive than the others that we're considering, so if we like this and another model equally, it might come down to price.
That's about it.
Our aim is now to find a small, reliable, efficient car to get for ourselves, in a price range of about $15,000-$20,000 - we're open to both new and used, apart from the models like the Fiesta where used cars do not yet exist. So I completely failed to spend my weekend relaxing from the turmoil of the last month as I had planned - yesterday, Whitney and I both went out to look at Toyotas and Volkswagens, and on Sunday, with her on the way to California, I was suddenly called by one of the Nissan dealers I'd sent an email to, encouraging me to come down and test drive them. Here is the entire summary of my thoughts so far.
Toyota Yaris - I honestly thought that this one was going to be at the top of our list and an easy buy for us, and it was the first that we went to see, but when we got to look inside one at the dealership, it instantly felt really cheaply made. There are a lot of bare plastic surfaces on the armrest and central console, and the driving position is uncomfortable - I'm a seat-all-the-way-forward kind of person because of my slightly dachshund-like legs, and in this position, the base of the unit for the steering wheel gets in the way of your knee. Instead of having the dials in front of you, they're placed away over in the centre of the console for reasons I can't explain. And the boot of the hatchback sort of nullifies its own usefulness by being too small to fit anything at all unless you put the back seats down. Despite our expectations, the sedan version is slightly better.
Toyota Prius - This is the most expensive car we've looked at, but as it's a hybrid engine, the fuel savings are (theoretically) astronomical. The interior is comfortable while still showing off with slidey space-age designs, and the only thing I found strange was the completely inadequate gearstick. (While I'm on the subject, why is Reverse forwards and Drive backwards? This never made sense to me.) A physical disadvantage that I found with it is that the distance between the driver and the front of the car is... enormous - it's one of the longest-nosed cars I've ever seen. It doesn't seem particularly unusual in a photograph, but inside, the dashboard is extremely deep. I've talked to
wolfekko and his other mechanically-inclined friends, and have learned a couple of drawbacks - that in reality the fuel savings are not that significant compared to smaller petrol-engine cars unless you're always driving in busy city traffic, and that maintenance is extremely costly, having to go to a specialist dealer instead of any old garage.Volkswagen Jetta - We looked at one of these at the almost deserted Volkswagen dealership down the road, as Whitney's mother had told us it sounded like a good small car. She must have been looking at a reduced photocopy, because it's the size of a bus. We left without anybody noticing we were there.
Nissan Versa - This one was the model of car that was our favourite to hire when we lived in Brookline, and it drove very well both then and when I took one out for a test drive. The dealership only had two of them, both used and not yet cleaned, and I didn't get to try the hatchback, because after walking out to the car park, the salesman couldn't find it! During the test drive, someone in front of me suddenly stopped dead for no reason in the middle of traffic, so the brakes got a good test and scored highly with me. According to the car reviews on US News, they have issues with safety and reliability, though, which are things that obviously seem fairly important. I've got another couple of offers on Versas (Versae?) from other dealers as well, and might try to pit them against each other if we go down this route.
Honda Fit - I had just intended to look quickly at the Honda dealership on my way back from the Nissan place, but I ended up going for a second test drive that day. This was pretty much an afterthought on our list, but after driving it, it went right up to near the top of the candidates in my mind - it's actually what I thought the Yaris would be like. It's small but doesn't feel cramped inside, is smooth and comfortable, has the speedometer and readouts in the right place, and the steering wheel is easily adjustable to a much better place where it doesn't obstruct your knee. It also has as standard a USB port on the passenger side, where you can plug in your mobile/music device and then control it from the wheel. I know that shouldn't impress me so much when buying a car, but it does.
I'm slightly wary about this one, though, because Honda Man can tell I'm interested - he asked me if there was anything to do to get me to name a price and buy that day, and I had to say no to him twice. While sitting at his desk going through the likely price and offers, he was on the phone to his boss chuckling away at unheard things like he was Noel Edmonds on Deal or No Deal talking to the Banker, and he kept relaying questions that shouldn't seem as loaded as they did, like which British football team I supported. Anyway, I'm going to look at this with Whitney again and see if she likes it as well.
Ford Fiesta - In America, this is a new car - I would comment once again on how America seems only to get good things many years behind other parts of the world, if it wasn't really a completely different car from the one that I drove in Britain. This is looking like the other of the most likely choices and it ranks as number 1 on the above site which says you absolutely cannot go wrong with it, though we're still to actually go and see and test one. Most of the ones that are available at the local dealer seem to be manual-transmission, and I'm not sure why I feel so reluctant about that seeing as that's what I learned on - I suppose I just assumed that every car was an automatic here, and that the availability of manual gears puts yet another choice on to the pile. It's also a little bit more expensive than the others that we're considering, so if we like this and another model equally, it might come down to price.
That's about it.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 12:57 am (UTC)And I've no idea why the instruments are all the way over there and on top of the dashboard - I suppose it gives you a better view than if the sticking-up bit was right in front of you, but... you need to have them! Digital Star Trek-like readouts now seem to now be quite common here, rather than the plain dials that I'm used to... and having had a Ford Fiesta from about 1995 before, I'm still quite impressed by cars that you can unlock from a few feet away.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 12:53 pm (UTC)I've never learned how to drive manual. For me, that means all my cars automatically have an extra $1,000 tacked on them.
Obviously, it comes down to your decision and comfort. The USB is a nice feature, and it's the only feature my car (Chevrolet Cobalt SS) doesn't have but I wish it did. However, it does have a MP3-CD Player so I can deal with that.
I was going to note that the Hybrid cars are expensive, and the gas benefits probably wouldn't outweigh that extra cost for quite some time (unless the price of gas continues to rise as it is). Considering that I've only owned a car for 6 years (and 4 of those years was my previous new car before I traded it in) You have to take into account if you plan to hold onto the car until it wears out, or if you're going to trade it in 5-6 years.
I've seen some cars where the "dashboard" is illuminated onto the lower part of the windshield. That's gotta be distracting, if totally Tron-tastic.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 01:25 pm (UTC)At this stage we're after something that's going to last as long as possible (and one of the other things that Honda Man enthusiastically said to me was that the Fit just goes forever). We've considered leasing rather than buying, but the period for which it would make sense is the same time that I would plan to pay off a bought car anyway.
Any other capability on the car stereo should be a step up from the MP3-converting cassette tape thing that I used to have. It's amazing how things have changed in the last five years - I think that was the last time I even saw anything cassette-shaped.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 02:05 pm (UTC)Depending on when you get your car, check out the leasing options - I happened to get my car when they were offering 0% financing so I don't have to pay any interest at all. I'm certain you're probably looking at cars in the immediate future, but I know usually the 0% deals happen around September.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 01:28 pm (UTC)Your story about the Fit just made me think of this (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sell_generation).. not to mention the great car-buying scene from Futurama, of which I can only find little snippets online sadly.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 02:19 pm (UTC)I think I might have seen that Futurama episode... but I've always meant to watch more of it, anyway. The salesman I'm dealing with is young and non-threatening, but... very enthusiastic about getting a decision from me. Most dealerships I've contacted send me endless semi-automated emails that I ignore, but he actually phoned me yesterday to see if I was any closer to deciding.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 02:59 pm (UTC)Out of those four, I'd agree that the Yaris feels cheaply made, and is very jerky to drive with the automatic transmission, especially at low speeds. I've never enjoyed driving Fords, they don't handle well at all, and like most American cars, I would avoid.
The Neeesawn Versa is a strange beast. It is actually a really great handling car, and very comfy to drive. The downsides are that it is underpowered, but I only really notice this when joining freeways. Around cities, it is not a problem. The biggest problem with the Versa for me is the security. Some of the older models have proper trunks, but the newer models are hatchbacks at don't have parcel shelfs, and everything that you have in the trunk can be viewed by anyone locking to break in (maybe LA county just makes me paranoid).
That leaves the Honda Fit. I've never driven the auto transmission version, but I had this car for a week in the UK (Jazz), and out of your list, I'd go for this without question. It consistently ranks at the top of most reliable cars - so Honda Man is right.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 03:02 pm (UTC)I really should proof read before posting.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 03:55 pm (UTC)Carrying capacity is a concern for us that I forgot to mention, which is why we were looking mainly at hatchbacks. Among the Yaris' many drawbacks was that the boot was basically non-existent, and I forgot to check this on the Fit (they had the back seats down in the showroom). But I think that despite it being on the afterthoughts list last Friday, it's looking very good just now.
Even though I said I would just try to relax and not give myself anything more to think about, I've been unable to stop, comparing Fiesta and Fit prices and features all the time. I still want to try the new-to-America Fiesta and see if it deserves its praise, but... otherwise, your thoughts might have made my decision a little bit easier, thank you very much :)