We spent 12 hours yesterday and ~2 hours today looking over cars, and we found-out several things:
* Old Buicks. Wow…no one can amortize production costs like General Motors. The Buick Century we looked at definitely felt like a quality buick from 1985, manufactured in 2002, right down to the front bench, column shifter, and coarse, powerless engine.
* Mazda 626, a very surprising, well-handling machine, but too small for our needs, we think. Whitney had a ball driving it, but it felt like a ’tween’ car…between a civic/corolla and a decent family sedan. Also, CR doesn’t like them too much
* Salespeople are highly variable in the used-car trade, and we saw the full gamut, from “Big John” at Swope (lied to us about everything…I barely believe ‘John’ was his real name..) to Danielle, the waif who looked 12-years-old. It think Whitney and I freaked-out Danielle.
* The Toyota Camry really is that good. It’s like, they took everything that makes sense about having an internal combustion conveyance for a family and put it into one car–good ergonomics, features, driveability, frugality, and ruggedness. I drove one for 15 minutes this evening–once around G’town, and LOVED it…
So, at this point, we’re on the look out for a 4-cylinder camry, with under 100k miles. We have a strong contender in the one we drove tonight, but it’d need a seat-swap with one having an adjustable seat (either power or manual).