Sunday, November 23, 2008

Update: The Car Situation

I test drove three cars yesterday. You may remember all three cars from a previous post I had here. The Toyota RAV-4 was by far the biggest disappointment as it seemed boxy and un-personal. One might think they were driving a horse and buggy by the way the RAV-4 positions the driver's body. The all-wheel drive felt terrible as the car seemed to be "grinding" all of the time. The car's V-4 engine felt weak and un-impressive. The RAV-4 did score high marks from me for the folding rear seat which left a large amount of space for stuff. Other than that, I was very disappointed.

The Honda Civic EX had the best value of the three (as expected) with many standard options including cruise control, a sunroof and MP3 player capability. The Civic was extremely peppy for a V-4 and I liked the fact that instead of a speedometer the car just shows you the number of MPH you are going. This was the first time I'd seen that. I was worried I would feel like I was skimming the ground in the Civic but the seat sat me higher than my 1998 Taurus, which was a welcome change.

The Acura TL was by far the best performer. The car had everything including leather seats, power-moonroof, powerful V-6 engine, MP3 capability, gadgets galore and plenty of passenger space. The care is actually a very reasonable price when bought used (as I intend) to do and would not be stretch for my budget if purchased. However as a finance major, I do not want to finance a car longer than 4 years and depending how much I can save before my current car dies, I may not be able to raise the down-payment I want.

No comments: