Mohtalim

I was thinking 20-30 range since im relatively poor, and from a 2door to not quite an suv.

Any opinions on Scions?

You're looking at the small one, not the box-on-wheels right?

Yea, the tC. Which is basically a Corolla.

Well, in that case, the only important question is which set of wheels are you getting?

Better plan: buy an American car and rice that bad boy up!

Note: I had to go to urbandictionary.com to figure out which adverb to use in that sentence.

So I test drove the following today

Honda Civic Hybrid
Honda Civic coupe
Honda Accord Sedan
Scion tC
Toyota Camry Hybrid
Toyota FJ
Nissan Altima
Nissan 350Z
Infinity G35
Infinity M35

Hybrids were pretty cool, but not worth it imo. The Civic was quite a bit better than I had thought, definitely liked the dash, at least more than the Scion's. Scion drove a bit better than the civic coupe.

Accord, Camry, Altima all drove about the same. 350Z was too small really. Altima I tested was a V-6 and didn't drive much worse than the G35. Bad thing about the G35 was I got to 85 without really noticing heh. Rear passenger room in the G35s was a lot less than I thought id be.

Overall in terms of price/performance, the Civic was probably tops, although the Scion comes pretty close.

Dave wrote:Bad thing about the G35 was I got to 85 without really noticing heh.

Yep, it has a lot of power ... especially in the upper band. It uses gas like a mofo though.

What's with the all japanese cars deal? Have you tried anything domestic? Like the ford focus?

Secondly, if all things are equal you should ask your insurance company what the rate is they charge between the two.

Mostly because I didn't like the styling of a bunch of the smaller sedans - Cobalt, Focus, Rabbit, Corolla, RSX, Ion. And the "good" ones like the 3 series, A4s, G35s are out of my desired price range.

That and I didn't bother to find out where some dealerships were. They're all pretty much on the same 2 roads, but all of the "main" 3 I want to test (toyota, honda, nissan) were on US1 which is right on the coast.

Would have liked to try an eclipse / mazada 3 / GTI / S40, but probably do that next weekend.

Insurance wise, I'd probably be better off with my Corolla I'd imagine, how much do you guys pay now?

Esurance using the same random standard options had:

$75 for my corolla
$97 for the tC
$101 for Eclipse GT
$105 for the Civic EX
$110 for G35
$151 for a Doge Viper!

hah, oops so apparently I didn't really need to give them my driver's license to test drive (only at Nissan & Infiniti oddly) and now I'm at risk of getting 15 bazillion credit checks against my score.

< noez!

But the Nissan dealer called my cell with a generic pre-recorded message which makes me think of his really bad teeth.

You should buy this: Bugatti Veyron

As soon as I sell my Corolla I'll put a down payment on it!

I haggled up to 3,000 for my corolla and a few hundred under invoice for the civic, putting me at exactly 15000 OTD. Time to see if the other dealership can beat that lol. This is almost fun being a complete ass. Apparently all of "my people" are good at it.

OTD? I'm not familiar with that acronym. From context it means out of pocket though.

otd = Out the Door (after all fees, taxes, etc) pretty much out of pocket.

Other dealer would only go as low as 15,250 so time to play the waiting game.

Just curious, which model and year of civic are you getting? And also is there a justifiable reason to get a new 07 civic vs a 06 civic? You're the third person I know that's buying a new civic

Originally haggled a 2007 EX coupe, then did a reverse bait and switch sorta and went with the LX coupe. I tried the Civic Si, wasn't too impressed and the EX didn't have enough features I cared about over the LX to justify the cost. Didn't consider an 06 because uhh, they didn't bother to show me any new 06s? I figure the resale value of 1 year newer is > than the lower cost of a new 06.

Of course, I still haven't "closed" since I think I've sufficently pissed off both Honda dealers by leaving (what I know now) as good offers on the table and playing them against each other.. (like literally walking out of their little office to call the other one up heh)..... so we'll see. I still haven't ruled out the tC... I like the styling, and haven't pissed of the dealership with the model I'm considering yet.

Procrastinated one week, no dealers went any lower so I bought a Silver Civic for 15k OTD, financed 5k (just for kicks). Unless of course, I don't get the 2.9% apr because they want to be mean or something. Worked out to them paying $3,174.98 for my awesome Corolla. I haggled 98 cents for my poorly manufactured and peeling CMU sticker. I kept my valet keys just incase I ever come across a white corolla with a dent in the rear bumper.

Me moving all my stuff to the new car