Los Automobiles Nuevos
I've been talking about getting a new car for a while, both of my longevity goals for Bucephalus (100,000 miles travelled or availability of hybrid sedans). That he failed inspection on Saturday (because his windshield crack, though stable since September, is longer than Memphis allows) has finally spurred me to action.
I had some free time between the inspection and the Imax of "Greece: Secrets of the Past" (which was a bit disappointing - concentrated pretty exclusively on Santorini and Athens), so I started up the line of dealerships on Covington Pike, as a bit of a warmup. My baseline requirements: sedan, automatic transmission, 40mpg preferred.
Gossett Hyundai started the adventure in classic car salesman fashion, by showing me a Sonata at 20mpg city/30 highway and getting told off. So I quickly went over to Dobbs Honda. Drove an Accord Hybrid. Not bad, but didn't grab me enough to make up for milage that still wasn't quite up to what I wanted. Salesman started getting pushy and it was time to head for the Pink Palace.
Today I thought I was just going to hit a couple more places on the way home. Aimed for the Saturn on Winchester, and whatever else was in the area. I got in the groove, though, and ended up going to rather more places than I'd expected (though that becomes easy when you get past the lines that are aware of the market for efficient vehicles).
Volkswagen: No hybrids, but they did have a rabidlemur and a diesel Jetta. The Jetta's much nicer looking than it used to be, has a huge trunk, and gets 35/42 mpg. Like all true Germans, it's a bit, um... touchy. Just waving a foot in the direction of the brake pedal makes it slow down; actually tapping it makes it stop.
Toyota: Didn't know there was one of these on Winchester, but it's what I'd been building up to. I'd thought my choices were Camry hybrid, Prius, and Altima hybrid (with difficulty). The Camry Hybrid had the smallest trunk I've ever seen off a sports car; I couldn't even put my groceries in there, much less bags for a serious road trip. The Prius drove wonderfully, and even the weirdly narrow rear window didn't seem like much of a problem after a few blocks. I really liked it, except Toyota doesn't appear to have believed anyone over 5'8 would ever want to drive one. Not much leg room for the driver (considerably less, I know, than for shotgun), the steering wheel doesn't tilt much, and the seat height somehow isn't adjustable.
Saturn: The closest they had was the Aura Hybrid. I'd have liked this one quite a lot when I was last car shopping, and possibly been willing to overlook the obnoxious presence of OnStar, but there wasn't anything much to recommend it besides Saturn dealers' geniality, given modern competition.
Nissan: I knew they wouldn't have a hybrid Altima on the lot (as the nearest place they're selling them is New York), but I thought maybe I'd test drive a regular one and make arrangements to look into the hybrid at the factory. Their response to my first mention of the hybrid, though, was: "Sorry, not selling 'em here. Sure, you can get one if you really want, but the warranty specifies you have to have a Nissan-certified mechanic do all the work on it, and they're not going to train any mechanics around here."
Mazda, Pontiac, and Chrysler/GMC dealers all were up front about not having anything that fit my needs.
I'm not surprised to only have two particular contenders at this point, though they're not the two I'd have expected, and they require rather different tradeoffs. The Prius is very nice apart from legroom. I've owned tighter, but I didn't like it, and I'm given to much more frequent long drives than ten years ago, and Benma's ability to fit in the driver's seat becomes an issue on the longer ones. The Jetta fits my size requirements nicely, but will require changes to my driving style - and just how easy is it to buy diesel?
Now that I've got a better idea of what's realistic, I should probably look at the Accord again, as well.
I had some free time between the inspection and the Imax of "Greece: Secrets of the Past" (which was a bit disappointing - concentrated pretty exclusively on Santorini and Athens), so I started up the line of dealerships on Covington Pike, as a bit of a warmup. My baseline requirements: sedan, automatic transmission, 40mpg preferred.
Gossett Hyundai started the adventure in classic car salesman fashion, by showing me a Sonata at 20mpg city/30 highway and getting told off. So I quickly went over to Dobbs Honda. Drove an Accord Hybrid. Not bad, but didn't grab me enough to make up for milage that still wasn't quite up to what I wanted. Salesman started getting pushy and it was time to head for the Pink Palace.
Today I thought I was just going to hit a couple more places on the way home. Aimed for the Saturn on Winchester, and whatever else was in the area. I got in the groove, though, and ended up going to rather more places than I'd expected (though that becomes easy when you get past the lines that are aware of the market for efficient vehicles).
Volkswagen: No hybrids, but they did have a rabidlemur and a diesel Jetta. The Jetta's much nicer looking than it used to be, has a huge trunk, and gets 35/42 mpg. Like all true Germans, it's a bit, um... touchy. Just waving a foot in the direction of the brake pedal makes it slow down; actually tapping it makes it stop.
Toyota: Didn't know there was one of these on Winchester, but it's what I'd been building up to. I'd thought my choices were Camry hybrid, Prius, and Altima hybrid (with difficulty). The Camry Hybrid had the smallest trunk I've ever seen off a sports car; I couldn't even put my groceries in there, much less bags for a serious road trip. The Prius drove wonderfully, and even the weirdly narrow rear window didn't seem like much of a problem after a few blocks. I really liked it, except Toyota doesn't appear to have believed anyone over 5'8 would ever want to drive one. Not much leg room for the driver (considerably less, I know, than for shotgun), the steering wheel doesn't tilt much, and the seat height somehow isn't adjustable.
Saturn: The closest they had was the Aura Hybrid. I'd have liked this one quite a lot when I was last car shopping, and possibly been willing to overlook the obnoxious presence of OnStar, but there wasn't anything much to recommend it besides Saturn dealers' geniality, given modern competition.
Nissan: I knew they wouldn't have a hybrid Altima on the lot (as the nearest place they're selling them is New York), but I thought maybe I'd test drive a regular one and make arrangements to look into the hybrid at the factory. Their response to my first mention of the hybrid, though, was: "Sorry, not selling 'em here. Sure, you can get one if you really want, but the warranty specifies you have to have a Nissan-certified mechanic do all the work on it, and they're not going to train any mechanics around here."
Mazda, Pontiac, and Chrysler/GMC dealers all were up front about not having anything that fit my needs.
I'm not surprised to only have two particular contenders at this point, though they're not the two I'd have expected, and they require rather different tradeoffs. The Prius is very nice apart from legroom. I've owned tighter, but I didn't like it, and I'm given to much more frequent long drives than ten years ago, and Benma's ability to fit in the driver's seat becomes an issue on the longer ones. The Jetta fits my size requirements nicely, but will require changes to my driving style - and just how easy is it to buy diesel?
Now that I've got a better idea of what's realistic, I should probably look at the Accord again, as well.