Car Shopping

We didn't expect to be car shopping for another 3 years or so. Needless to say, we hadn't even thought about what kind of car we would like when I got in the accident in June. So, while we were waiting to hear back from the insurance adjustor, we sat down and talked about budget and what we were looking for in a car. We want to get an SUV when we have kids, so we even considered getting one now. We decided early on in the search that we would wait to get the SUV until we actually need the extra space. For now, we were much more concerned about gas mileage. 

Once we decided we were getting a car, we had to decide which features were important to us. We knew we wanted a sedan, something with good gas mileage, no black interior (Bailey's white hair shows up very well on black and I know it would drive me crazy), and a decent sized trunk. We were considering new vs used too. These are a LOT of things to consider when you're on a short time frame. We did lots of research online and our top choices were the Honda Civic and Mazda 3. We also considered the Ford Focus and Toyota Corolla. We ended up ruling out the Focus pretty early on. The Corolla was the first car we test drove. We liked it, but it didn't stand out. We found it used at a Honda dealership. I decided before the test drive was even over that I really didn't want to buy a car from this particular dealership. The guy who helped us was extremely pushy and knew absolutely nothing about the car (I actually doubt he knew much about cars at all, he didn't know manuals could come with cruise control). I'm no expert about cars, but if it's your job to sell cars, you should be able to answer basic questions a potential buyer has about the car. We had a max budget for used and new cars, and he didn't even acknowledge that. He was showing us used cars that were at the top of our new car budget. 

The next day, we continued our search. Our first stop was a Honda dealership a co-worker referred me to. He's been buying cars from this dealership for many years and he only had good things to say about them. He put in a call for us, and we went to go see them the next day. We had already ruled out the Accord because of price and gas mileage. We wanted to go with a smaller car, so we drove the Civic. We drove a silver one and we loved it. We liked this dealership much much better than the previous Honda dealership. We told them what we wanted, the salesman got it for us and let us go on a test drive on our own. This was much better and more relaxed than when the salesman is in the car with you. We were free to talk about the car or whatever while we rode. We both drove it and it was very comfy and drove very well. We had leather seats in the Taurus, and they get uncomfortably hot in the summer time, plus we had concerns about Bailey puncturing the seats with her nails (we use a hammock, but it's still a concern). Because of this, we decided we wanted cloth seats this time around. We decided that keyless entry and cruise control were essential, but we were flexible on any other features. I had done some online shopping for used Civics, and I was finding them for less than $1,000 cheaper than a new one. With them having 60-80K miles on them already, it didn't seem worth it to go with a used Civic. We decided on the LX. It had the features we wanted along with a few more. My favorites are the auxiliary input jack, the multi-information display  (We can have a picture display!) and USB audio capabilities. It makes playing the Ipod much easier, which is great for trips. Some of the more expensive models had a sunroof (we had one in the Taurus and rarely used it, so this wasn't a big deal) and bluetooth. The bluetooth would have been cook for the Ipod, but it wasn't worth the extra money for us. We really liked the Civic, but we wanted to drive the Mazda 3 too.

I was really excited to drive the Mazda 3. I definitely liked it better visually. I was pretty close to buying one my sophomore year of college, but Josh talked me out of it. I've liked them since then. We both loved the Mazda 3. We drove an automatic with the +/-. It was pretty cool. You can choose to shift up manually, but the car automatically shifted down for you, and you didn't have to use a clutch to shift up. We both thought that was pretty cool, but we decided after having the car for a few month, we would probably never use it. It drove very well and the sound system was a little better than the Civic. One of the major drawbacks for the Mazda 3 was the interior options. It was either black, or an ugly tan/black combination. It may sound silly, but this was pretty much a deal breaker. Granted, one of the reasons we liked the the way it looked so much better was because it had black interior, I knew it would only take 1 trip with Bailey for that to change our minds. We really wanted gray.

Next, we drove another Civic. We just wanted to go to another dealership to see how the price compared to the quote we got at the first dealership. We also drove a manual at this one. We were interested in one from the beginning, but the first dealership didn't have any on the lot in the LX. We drove the Polished Metal Metallic (darker silver looking color) and we liked it much better than the silver metallic we drove at the first dealership. We liked the interior color better too. We both LOVED driving the manual and we were leaning toward buying it for quite a while. This dealership gave us a higher price (even though the manuals are a little cheaper) than the first dealership, and there was more pressure. We really liked the low pressure at the other dealership a lot. 

We went home and talked about all the cars. We decided we prefer the Civic. Now we just needed to find a used car to compare it to so we could be sure we wanted to get a new one. I had already done this online for a bit, so I kind of knew what to expect, but Josh wanted to go see one just to be sure. We went to look at 1 and ended up not even test driving it. It was 4 years old and had somewhere between 60 and 80K miles on it (I can't remember for sure). It was only $600 cheaper than the quote we got for the brand new car. Obviously, it wasn't worth it for us. If we went new, we would have the warranty, which I think is worth $600 itself. So, we decided we would go with the new Civic. Once we decided on the Civic, we briefly thought about getting the nicer model with the leather seats some other features. I was all for it. I knew leather was a concern with Bailey, but it did look nicer. This car was $4K more. Ultimately, we decided not to go this route since we're still trying to pay off some student loans. We're already taking on a car payment, and we didn't want it to be higher than it needed to be. 

I woke up around 12:30 am Sunday because I was cold. I was SO excited, because this meant our power was back on. We were planning on buying the car the next day as long as we heard for sure that the Taurus was totaled. I was excited and I wanted to be sure about our choice, so I got up to do a little internet searching. I was looking at the awards each car got. The Mazda got things like, fun to drive. The Civic got awards for much more practical things, like holding value. If I were 19 searching for a car, I would have definitely gone with the Mazda 3. I'm much more practical now (and Josh is much more practical than me), so we decided for sure to go with the Civic. They also have a reputation for lasting a really really long time. The Mazda 3 has only been out since '04, so it doesn't have a track record like the Civic.

So far, we're completely happy we bought the Civic. We have decided that we definitely prefer leather seats. Bailey's hair clings to the fabric in our car, but at least it does vacuum up easy. We don't necessarily wish we would have gotten the leather seats since our car payment is much lower, but we do want to get leather seats for our next car. That's really the only thing we don't love about our car so far.