Please indulge me as I try to figure out what we want to do for a new car. Of course, a lot of this will be fantasy, as I'm not even sure what our insurance company is going to offer for our totalled 98 Civic. Still, this is how I'm coping with the accident... and darn it, this is MY blog and I'll write about what I want to!
Looking at brand-new cars, I think I've narrowed it down to the Ford Focus ZX5, the Honda Civic sedan, the Toyota Corolla, and the Mazda3. There's a reason I've selected each, and each has its own pros and cons.
The Ford is what I'm driving as a rental, courtesy of State Farm, and it's pretty sweet. It handles quite well, has great visibility, and gets good gas mileage. OTOH, it doesn't have much get-up and the rear seats leave a little to be desired. If tricked out, it's a little high on the price range; as a more reasonable model, it's as competitive or moreso than the other three models. It is still a Ford, though, and at least one review ended with something like "the only bad note is the fact that Ford has a history of recalls"... hrm...
The Honda Civic is what could have saved my wife's life. It's always a good choice, offering safety, performance, economy, and features. In fact, I really have very little to say about the Civic except that I loved ours. The only downside is the price; to get a Civic equipped with front and side airbags, ABS, and all the safety goodies would generally cost a grand or two more than the next most costly car. But the Civic, in our experience, as been worth every dime. (Well, the engine crapped out at 115k miles, but I suspect that might have more to do with our lack of maintenance than any faulty design...)
My parents recently bought a Toyota Corolla and we drove it around a bit before the rental car came through. It's a bit more conservative than the Civic, especially in terms of acceleration and handling, but it's a bit more comfortable as well. All in all, it does everything in a competant, if not spectacular, manner. Combine that with a stellar safety, a virtually non-existent repair record, and a good middle-of-the-road price, and the Corolla is certainly a safe bet.
Finally, the Mazda3 is sort of the dark horse. I don't know much about it (outside of the extremely positive reviews), I don't know anyone with one, and it's a brand-new car for 2004. And yet, with the most horsepower of the bunch, gas mileage second only to the Corolla, styling like no other compact, and handling described as "European in nature", the Mazda3 sure gets me excited to drive it. :-) The best part is that it's near the low-end of the price range.
I'm leaning toward the Mazda3, and a test-drive (hopefully tomorrow) should help that along. Are there any others I should be considering? (The mid-size cars are just out of our price range.) Any words of wisdom?
Posted by pcg at November 28, 2003 11:05 PMI don't have anything new to add about the specific models you mention. You've made all the same observations I would have. You should, however, read this article Adam recently mentioned before stepping foot in a dealership.
Posted by: alan on November 29, 2003 2:33 PMyou mentioned that the mazda3 is new out this year. i haven't had good experience with cars that come out their inagural year. in my experience they usually have little things go wrong on regular intervals. FWIW.
Posted by: palletjackracer on November 30, 2003 6:14 PMalan: wow, what a fun article. (I only remember adam's post from the rant on video games, totally forgot about the car thing.) if nothing else, I've discovered carsdirect.com from an off-hand comment in that article... and it looks to be an absolute God-send. (I'm not much of a haggler.)
pjr: it's new this year, but (a) has been around in Japan for a while, and (b) shares a lot with the Protege and Mazda6 which have been out for longer. but I know what you're saying, and that's definitely a point to take into account...
Posted by: pcg on November 30, 2003 6:21 PMAre you really going to buy a brand-new (IOW, not used) car? I'm not a car whiz, but most people seem to agree that even buying a year old car saves you a few thousand dollars.
Posted by: joel on December 1, 2003 7:46 AMWe aren't set with a brand-new car. In fact, even 2003 models are being pretty significantly marked down across the board. One that I'm looking at is a 2003 Mazda Protege ES fully decked out for $14,100. That's about $4k below MSRP, which is savings enough for me not to have to deal with the possible problems that go with a used car. But we're open, especially to 2001 or later Accords as "safe" options.
Posted by: pcg on December 1, 2003 7:50 AMI'll always swear by foreign cars, but I'll never buy the first iteration of a car, I don't think. Too much guesswork. If you are worried about mileage and safety, how to hybrid cars work in there?
In the end, I bought my car from a dealer (who was a jackass) simply because I couldn't find the car I was looking for in the condition I wanted from a private seller.
Posted by: Adam on December 2, 2003 7:44 AMI guess I don't consider the Mazda3 the first iteration of a car, given its background, but otherwise I'd agree.
The problem with hybrids is that they are too expensive, and it would take years to make back the money in gas savings. They don't appear to be any more or less safe than their non-hybrid counterparts.
One gas miser option that would work out better than a hybrid would probably be a Jetta TDI (turbo diesel). In addition to diesel being cheaper than gas at most places, the Jetta TDI gets like 40-50mpg and still pushes 100HP and 177ft/lb of torque. Still, at the end of the day, the Jetta is significantly more expensive than comparable models (even though it's probably better to drive too), and that little bit of gas mileage really isn't going to make much of a difference for a while.
Posted by: pcg on December 2, 2003 8:19 AMI was out car shopping like you were and I was thinking about buying a new Celica, or a new Sunfire... Then I stopped by the Nissan place and drove a Mazda3. That was it, I found my car. The car handles so nice, and the interior just looks cool... it gets good gas mileage and another feature I liked was that I had the option of driving Automatic or Manual whenever I wanted with the same car. I dont know, there was just something about it when I took it for test drive. I love it.
Posted by: Joel C. on February 21, 2004 6:18 PM