Our lives have gotten an upheaval in the past few days that it has taken me a while to get a breather and a chance to blog again. I have a couple of tidbits that I would be sharing in the near future and I'll start with one now.
A couple of weeks ago, Mom delivered the happy news that she and Dad have decided to join my sister and her kids for their visit this July. This is good, except that this sent us scrambling around looking for a 7 or an 8 passenger vehicle for our second car, rather than the sedan that we were thinking about.
Considering that my not-so-little younger brother is arriving for his annual visit next week, we thought it would be prudent to just purchase the 2nd family car now rather than later. I didn't want to have to juggle our schedules again.
I've always dreaded car hunting. You see, I get impatient easily and having no idea about prices, I do hate to haggle - especially with car salesmen who try to slip things past you and talk you into signing up for extended warranties and prepaid service contracts that would turn out to be impractical later on.
Thankfully, I did manage to get a few days off of work and I spent the time looking around for price estimates, dealerships and promotions. We thought that we had armed ourselves with enough information and had our hearts set on getting the Mazda CX9. A 7 seater, 3 row full-sized SUV with nice looking interiors and comfortable 3rd row seating. It didn't hurt that Mazda was currently offering 0% APR for the next 3 years for the CX9.Unfortunately, we discovered during the test drive that the 3rd row does not have AC vents - a big no no because my nephews would be occupying those seats in the summer and they get carsick easily, the AC helps them stay comfortable. And asking around some more, we heard comments that "Mazda's AC has always been weak". Hmm, not good.
This discovery sent us running off to Toyota to check out the Highlander, another SUV. The Highlander, which I remember as being nice from our visit to the dealership last year, was so disappointing. The thing with Toyota is that the base model is really a base model. It's cheap-looking and lacks the bells and whistles that make the other vehicles so desireable.I'm sure that the more expensive trim would look so much better, but the one we saw at the $32k level (same price level as the CX9 that we looked at earlier) had manual seat adjustments for the driver & passenger seats and really cheap dashboard material. Did I mention that the CX9 had the upgraded Bose sound system w/ 6 cd changers already ?
So while the Toyota's AC was satisfactory, the interior of the vehicle left us very disappointed.
The same day, we also checked out the Honda Pilot and we didn't fall in love with it.
While still not entirely happy with the Mazda CX9, it seemed like it was the more sensible and practical of the two (vs the Toyota Highlander) and in the hopes of sealing our decision, hubby asked to drop by Subaru to check out the Tribeca and I agreed. We wanted to sort of check out and eliminate all the other options before we move forward and buy the CX9.
I wasn't really expecting to get another Subaru because our current car is already a Subaru and with AWD (All Subarus have AWD), the gas mileage isn't really very good compared to a 2WD vehicle.
But gosh, it handled really well during the test drive. I was mildly surprised to find hubby - who had so many complaints about the gas pedal and the steering during the test drives - smiling. He was actually smiling! and happy!
We switched places and I loved it too! When we got back to the lot, we whispered to each other and agreed that this is it.
3rd row seat - comfortable.
AC vents for all passengers - yes!
steering - perfect
Two hours later - well past the dealership's closing time - we brought home our 2nd car. Di na ako kulong sa bahay and we're happy :D
Photos taken from www.MazdaUSA.com, www.toyota.com and www.subaru.com
3 comments:
That is nice! So who will be driving this mainly?
Subaru has not always been popular here in Texas (probably cause we don't need AWD), but they are becoming better known. The bf bought a Subaru too a few months ago. I've never seen him happier.
I think it's the same case in CA as in Texas. A few years ago, you only see a handful of Subarus but I've seen a lot these past few years - mostly Imprezas though (the sporty line).
This is mainly my car. It's such a gas guzzler and does not make sense for hubby's daily work commute. I work from home naman and will use this to run errands.
What did your bf get ? Have you tried driving it? Ang ganda ng handling ng Subaru, I swear :)
He got a WRX STI. I'd love to try it out but I'm not sure he'll let me. Hehehehe.
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