This afternoon between packing and a violin lesson and before heading to the airport I visited Motorcars Honda -- they had found the Honda Accord Coupe in Belize Blue I wanted to test drive at a Columbus-area dealer and had it delivered while I was in California and today was the first day they were open while I was in Ohio. In short I -- and my ladyfriend who was along for the test drive -- loved the car. It felt comfortable, it looked great (I thought the color looked good in the showroom--even better in natural light), handled well.
When I got back to the dealer since the price had already been set it was a matter of getting the paperwork done. I'm a little peeved that they hung a 0.9% APR in front of me and then changed it to 2.9% due to a limited credit history (well, I have one credit card--no balance--and a mortgage, and that's it, so I can't really say I'm surprised, but I wish they would have mentioned that when they pulled my mid-800s credit score last week.*)... more paperwork... Wrote the biggest check of my life to date (my house down payment was a wire transfer), and...I am a new car owner, though I'm not actually taking delivery until I get back to Cleveland on Saturday.
On the flight from Cleveland to Kansas City -- a bit bumpy but otherwise uneventful -- read through the owners manual, warranty booklets, etc... and started to doubt myself slightly: While the Civic was a strong contender early on I pretty much stopped considering it but I can't really articulate a reason why as I can with every other contender that fell by the wayside. Did I make a mistake? Was the price difference between the Accord and Civic worth it?
I rationalized it by saying that the slightly larger engine and additional creature comforts of the Accord pushed it ahead -- my one complaint from Day 1 with my Mercury Tracer was that it did 0-60 in about 20 minutes, and I was determined not to repeat that with my next car. But still -- should I have at least test driven a Civic?
That train of thought was interruped by the horrendous sound of an Embraer ERJ-145 with well-worn brakes touching down and then applying maximum breaking force: If I thought my car's breaks sounded bad...
Landing in Kansas City, that question was unexpectedly answered: After collecting my bags from baggage claim and hopping aboard the rental car shuttle I wound up at the Hertz counter. The first car I was offered was... drumroll, please... a 2011 Honda Civic.
The interiors of the two models are completely different, but a lot of the adjustments are the same. In the 45-minute drive from MCI to Olathe I came to the conclusion that the Civic would not have been the car for me. The cockpit design just feels weird and I couldn't come up with a configuration that was comfortable (my attempts at adjusting the headrest have so far failed and I have a crick in my neck worse than any airline flight has given me). It does handle well and is pretty responsive -- though there was some hesitation with rapid acceleration, and uphill climbs seemed to take some effort.
The dashboard design is interesting -- I like the speedometer placement and size but I don't know that I could get used to the rest of it. And ultimately I just don't care for the cockpit geometry -- it's not horrible (see: Toyota Yaris) or even bad... it's just a tad too compact for my driving style.
At least I can put that one to rest.
Speaking of the Mercury... my salesman suggested (and I'm not supprised) that I'm probably better off donating the car to charity and taking a tax writeoff than trying to do a trade in where at best their offer would be in the low 3-digits. Hmmm...
Lincoln
*- I'm going to formally request a clarification of the reasons for the adverse action, but since it only amounts to a few hundred dollars over the life of the loan, and 2.9% still beats the best rate I could find on the open market...)
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