One of the things about living and working in the suburbs is that unless you want to spend hours a day riding the bus, you'll need a car. You'll also learn that cars are one of the worst investments you can ever make. The only thing that might be worse than buying a car may be leasing one. Of course, this only applies to people who aren't baller, and with that in mind I am purchasing a new car.
After spending the weekend car shopping here's the lineup of autos that made it to the final round. FYI there is no such thing as no sunroof in my books.
| MODEL | HORSEPOWER | FUEL ECONOMY | KM/TANK CITY | PRICE |
| Civic LXSR | 140 @ 6300 | 7.4/5.4 | 676 (50L) | $20,780 |
| Matrix Touring | 132 @ 6000 | 7.8/6.2 | 641 (50L) | $20,920 |
| Corolla S | 132 @ 6000 | 7.5/5.6 | 667 (50L) | $21,200 |
| Golf 3-door Sportline | 177 @ 5700 | 10.4/7 | 528 (55L) | $23,900 |
By far the VW was easily the best car I've driven - you pay a more for the quality and performance but like the
Lets put it this way: I am a
Don't get me wrong, I went in there to finance the thing but after getting only $700 below sticker and a real douche for a salesperson, I didn't want to buy anything let alone a car from the guy and left the place with a bitter taste in my mouth. He tried every sleazy trick in the book and annoyed the shit out of me with his arrogance - imagine the guy asked me if I could afford a $90 oil change. Now that I've had some time to reconsider the whole thing, as much as I wanted to buy a VW after a real hard look I've decided it was not meant to be. It feels like the whole thing was a sign from the gods telling me that Asians gotta stick together.
Don't get me wrong, I could have financed the shit out of that 36 month 0% but I've come to terms that the higher cost of maintenance, parts and especially gas is somehow uncharacteristically not me. To put it in my perspective, what I see is that Toyota/Honda offer $1000+ off the MSRP, get well over 100+ km more per tank, cost less to maintain and fix. The quality of VW is unquestionable but you definitely pay for it in the long run.
This is the perspective of a guy who uses Quicken to manage his finances and has categories and budgets for things like Firearms/Ammo, Toys/eBay misc., and Annual Ski Trip. While I own some pretty fine rifles and camera gear I don't think I'll be owning a fine automobile any time soon...it's too bad really.
Anyway, that's the kind of shit that keeps me up at night. Ken Rockwell wrote an article that I love to read every now and again: How to afford anything, and it mentions one of the mottos that I like to live by: A poor man pays twice. Give it a glance some of it really makes sense.
I won't be racing anyone any time soon...
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