(no subject)
Well I did it. I bought a new car.
I've been toying with the idea for a while now. I love my Akai but she was starting to have slight maintenance issues, holes in mufflers and constant brake problems etc. So for the past few months I've been reading reviews online, watching dealership websites, test driving... you know the fun part.
Well over Memorial weekend I went to Hyundai and test drove one of their accents. I thought I was on a pretty limited budget and couldn't get much beyond a bare bones car. No power, no options, just a car. So that's what I looked at. I came very very close to purchasing a blue Accent hatchback. Two door, no options. It was automatic and had a radio, beyond that it was stripped. This car would have cost me 200/month with nothing down.
My parents came down Sunday and my dad looked at the car and said he would feel better if I was driving something that had actually been tested for saftey. He also reminded me that I had just inherited quite a bit of money from my Grandmother. This opened up a lot of options to me that I hadn't even previously considered.
So Tuesday I cancelled the deal on the Accent and started looking at Elantras. There were two that I was interested in. One was a blue SE which had everything you can want in a 20k car including a sunroof, power everything (including seats!), heated seats, leather steering wheel, in steering wheel cruise control and audio controls etc. Fully loaded. The other was a blue GLS Elantra which was pretty much the same car as Akai only 10 years newer. The SE would have been 231/month and the GLS would be 213/month.
Well I left the Hyundai dealership and headed over to the Kia dealership. I didn't know it but apparently Kia and Hyundai are sister companies and share about 75% of the parts. Looking at a Kia Spectra I noticed that it was essentially an Elantra. Same warranty, same dash, hell even the key fobs are the same. They didn't have any in blue but said they could order me one, which I was OK with. So I took one out for a test drive.
I LOVED it. It handled exactly how I wanted a car to handle and didn't feel huge or small. Best of all the car has everything I want and nothing I didn't need. It's an automatic, power locks and windows, manual seat adjustment, air conditioning, SUNROOF, and has an aux input for the radio.
The price? 18,697. Plus Kia was having a 3,000 off rebate so, 15,000 and I tossed 4,000 down. My monthly payment 207/month.
The dealership had some trouble processing the loan so I ended up test driving the vehicle for 48 hours prior to buying it. But yesterday at 7:30pm she become legally my car.
I'll upload some pictures later, but she's silver and awesome.
Any ideas on a name?
I've been toying with the idea for a while now. I love my Akai but she was starting to have slight maintenance issues, holes in mufflers and constant brake problems etc. So for the past few months I've been reading reviews online, watching dealership websites, test driving... you know the fun part.
Well over Memorial weekend I went to Hyundai and test drove one of their accents. I thought I was on a pretty limited budget and couldn't get much beyond a bare bones car. No power, no options, just a car. So that's what I looked at. I came very very close to purchasing a blue Accent hatchback. Two door, no options. It was automatic and had a radio, beyond that it was stripped. This car would have cost me 200/month with nothing down.
My parents came down Sunday and my dad looked at the car and said he would feel better if I was driving something that had actually been tested for saftey. He also reminded me that I had just inherited quite a bit of money from my Grandmother. This opened up a lot of options to me that I hadn't even previously considered.
So Tuesday I cancelled the deal on the Accent and started looking at Elantras. There were two that I was interested in. One was a blue SE which had everything you can want in a 20k car including a sunroof, power everything (including seats!), heated seats, leather steering wheel, in steering wheel cruise control and audio controls etc. Fully loaded. The other was a blue GLS Elantra which was pretty much the same car as Akai only 10 years newer. The SE would have been 231/month and the GLS would be 213/month.
Well I left the Hyundai dealership and headed over to the Kia dealership. I didn't know it but apparently Kia and Hyundai are sister companies and share about 75% of the parts. Looking at a Kia Spectra I noticed that it was essentially an Elantra. Same warranty, same dash, hell even the key fobs are the same. They didn't have any in blue but said they could order me one, which I was OK with. So I took one out for a test drive.
I LOVED it. It handled exactly how I wanted a car to handle and didn't feel huge or small. Best of all the car has everything I want and nothing I didn't need. It's an automatic, power locks and windows, manual seat adjustment, air conditioning, SUNROOF, and has an aux input for the radio.
The price? 18,697. Plus Kia was having a 3,000 off rebate so, 15,000 and I tossed 4,000 down. My monthly payment 207/month.
The dealership had some trouble processing the loan so I ended up test driving the vehicle for 48 hours prior to buying it. But yesterday at 7:30pm she become legally my car.
I'll upload some pictures later, but she's silver and awesome.
Any ideas on a name?