The above picture is an ad produced for a New York City area bank (which I ended up working for a few years after this ad campaign). They wanted to show the public that they would lend money on any major car brand, then: Ford, Chevy, AMC, Chrysler, and Volkswagen. Although more brands have appeared in the American market in the past 50 years, the process of buying a car is just as frustrating now as it was when I bought my first car.
This weekend, I wanted to take test rides in 3 cars: The Subaru Crosstrek, the Honda HR-V, and the Mazda CX-30. Although all 3 would be good choices, I am leaning towards choosing either the Crosstrek or the HR-V. Both are excellent cars, and both have all the options I want for a similar price. RQS leans towards the Crosstrek because of its display. I'm still torn between the two due to my prior experience with the Honda brand. What I see as an advantage with the Subaru is equaled by my experience with my Honda Civic.
On Friday, I picked up RQS at the station, and we test drove a Subaru. I was pleasantly surprised how good this car felt. It was a car which I wouldn't be bumping my head into the door frame upon entering the car - and I like that. Although a 15 minute drive is way too short to evaluate a car, it was enough for me to make it my number 2 (or even my number 1) pick. At the end of this test drive, I knew I needed to drive this car again before making a final decision.
Saturday came, and we didn't get out of the house until mid afternoon. Our first stop was at a Honda dealership to drive the HR-V. And RQS was equally impressed with this car. It seems like this is an extremely popular model, as this model seems to be sold as quickly as it is delivered to the dealership. Once done with this dealership, we ended up at another Honda dealership. This time, they had no HR-Vs in stock for me to drive. In fact, half of the cars in this dealer's showroom were used cars. How this dealership makes money I'll never know.
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I made an offer to DCD that he could buy my current car for book value. Given that the car has over 200k miles on it, but has been well maintained, DCD figures the value to be about $2,500. Since I am not going to be holding a note on this car, I wanted a check for this amount if I were to sell him the car. Today, I found out that he is not able to get this amount of money from his bank, "The bank of Mom". So, I guess I'll end up letting the dealer take my old car off my hands.
In the end, I expect to be $33k poorer than I am now, but with a car that's safer to drive. The only questions are: (1) Which car will I choose, and (2) When will I drop the hammer on the deal?
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