ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

This past weekend I went and test drove the Sentra and Civic. I like the Sentra 2.0S pretty well, but the model I like is stickered at almost $18,500, which is not what I want to pay. And I didn’t really like the 2.0 very much for some reason, and even that is at the utmost end of what I want to pay, once I added in the things that don’t come standard on it, like ABS. And shit, the Civic isn’t bad looking but they can freaking talk to the hand. It doesn’t even come standard with a freaking radio. I mean, for godsake it’s a $250 option to put a cassette player in. They told me up front at the Honda dealership that they don’t come down on the prices, period. You can get like $300 off and that’s about it.

So, here’s where I was at by the end of Saturday:

• Nissan Sentra - Cute and liked it fairly well in the 2.0S trim. Did not especially care for the 2.0 model, which you can’t even elect to get cruise on. Does not come standard with much, so I have to pay for extra packages to get things like ABS and electronic stabilization. I thought I was totally set on manual transmission, but the 6-speed is a little awkward and weird. The automatic CVT transmission is cool. I like the green color it comes in.
• Honda Civic - Streamlined and interesting looking. Too expensive. Its base price is higher than the others and it has the same stuff that I would have to add in like on the Sentra. Also, I just don’t like it nearly as much and when they told me they don’t come down, that basically sealed the deal.
• Toyota Yaris - Cheap, fuel efficient. But I hate the idea of getting blown around on the highway. Not that I ever plan to drive from Kansas to Michigan’s upper peninsula, but if I did, I might just blow off of Mackinac Bridge. That happened in 1987 to a Yugo. And that was only 20 years ago, so they’re due for another. And it ain’t going to be me, because I’m not getting the Yaris. I mean, I’m sure it’s good, only, I just want something a little heavier.
• Toyota Corolla - Disliked it a lot for a lot of little reasons. This disappointed me a lot because I have a ‘96 Camry now and thought that the logical progression in Toyota ownership would be to get a Corolla. But as someone on Edmunds.com wrote, “this car was manufactured in a land where cheap plastic is the national tree”. Also, maybe it’s that I test drove a white car with a beige interior, both of which colors I dislike for cars. Oh, well. It had less pickup than my 12 year old Camry.

And I realized that my most economical option was the Volkswagen Rabbit, which scared me because everyone has been telling me how awful Volkswagen is on reliability. Because of this, I thought carefully all weekend and then conducted a 13 (not consecutive) hour research blitzkrieg. From this, I learned that a lot of Volkswagen’s quality issues stem from their plant in Mexico, which is where the Passats and Jettas were made. While the Rabbit is made in Germany. So this helps explain why most of the Europeans out there on the internet don’t understand why Americans think Volkswagen is unreliable. Anyway, then I went and checked out the user reviews. There were a few scathing “don’t buy this no matter what” type reviews, but actually the Rabbit had fewer than most other cars I checked out.

A lot of people besides me dislike the Corolla, in other words. It didn’t have a single review over two stars on Yahoo! reviews.

So my intense research taught me that I am going to purchase the Rabbit. We went yesterday to the dealership and they are going to find me one in the area. I am excited about that, and I am also excited about the smoothie I’m going to make right now. Life is good.