Where to begin...

Catching the blog up...I'll start with the new car, only because I have pics from S.F. and I don't feel like uploading them at the moment.

A few weeks ago it became clear that a new car was in the near future for me. I had taken my Saturn in for the 60,000 mile regularly scheduled maintenance and received not-good news. The clutch was going to go "sometime in the next 6 months or so" ($1600 repair), the brakes needed fixing (at least $100), and the tires were right at the "replace" mark ($400ish on the cheap side). This added up to about $2k on a car I owed $1700 on, which was worth $5k as a trade. Mathematically this added up to "Trade Before It Dies Completely!"

So I started searching. With the help of the ever-reliable Consumer Reports, I narrowed it down quite a bit. The Honda Fit was cheap and well-rated, then there were the Toyota Corolla and the Mazda 3. OK, that's a start. The Fit was rapidly shot down by Steph as being an ugly car that she wouldn't want to be seen in, so that's a problem. I headed over to Mazda and tried out the Mazda 3, then got introduced to the lovely world of fucked-up leases. The pricier Mazda 6 was cheaper to lease, due to the financing available. It was still $100 more than my current monthly car payment though, so I began getting discouraged about my chances of being able to afford something reliable. Headed over to Toyota and basically got laughed at by a saleswoman. "You thought you were going to get WHAT payment? How did you get to that number?!" (I explained and it was actually quite reasonable, but the best payment they came back with was still $30 more than even Mazda had managed.)

On to Honda. This is where the infomercial starts. Anyone reading this in the Denver area and thinking about a car purchase needs to go talk to Jack Must at Go Honda at 104th & Federal. We had dealt with him on Steph's CR-V, I test-drove the vetoed Fit w/ him, and I had promised to go back and see him before getting anything for myself. Boy am I glad I did. Somehow Accords are leasing for less that Civics with the model-year closeout and all, so I was already getting more car than I had thought I might be able to afford. After picking a base model Accord that I loved, Jack went back to run #s for me and came back a few minutes later w/ his manager. Would I be interested, maybe, in a car with more options that was $8 cheaper per month than the basic Accord? Let's see...add a sunroof, wood-grain paneling on the dash, audio controls on the steering wheel, heated side mirrors, and alloy wheels, and pay less money? Um....ok Jack, you talked me into it.

Longish story somewhat shorter, I ended up in a brand spanking new 2007 Honda Accord with lots of options for only $30 more than I had been paying for my falling-apart '01 Saturn. I'm fairly happy with that for some odd reason.

Jack Must, Go Honda, 104th & Federal. I promised him I'd recommend people :-)