Thursday, April 23, 2009

We got a new Car!

My husband and I decided a few months ago that we probably needed a new car. Our 1991 Chevy Blazer and 1994 Nissan Sentra, while beloved, are certainly getting up there in age. Best to have at least one newer car.

By reading reviews, we narrowed our desired car to one of these 4 choices in the small SUV class:
Toyota RAV4
Ford Escape
Honda CR-V
Subaru Forester

Over the past few months, we have been visiting dealerships. I suppose I should have been blogging about each visit, but I confess I've been strapped for time. So instead I've kept notes on various topics and will soon begin my "Car Shopping" series.

But here is the summary of the results:
After our first round of visits, we narrowed our choice down to Toyota Rav4 vs. Ford Escape.
And finally, this past weekend, we chose the Toyota Rav4. [And I have named it "Red XIII" after our favorite Final Fantasy character.] It almost broke my heart to not buy American in these current economic times. But the Rav4 had one feature that no other small SUV offered: an optional 3rd row. This gave us a lot of flex, if we should decide to have a second baby. Had it not been for this, I would have bought the Escape, because it is a fabulous car.

Here is Ford's consolation prize: I am going to write here for everyone to read and search engines to crawl, that Ted Britt Ford of Fairfax, Virginia is utterly fabulous. I absolutely want our next car purchase to be a Ford, just so I can buy a car from them. Great people. Totally professional. Completely not the typical 'car salesman' model. Loaner for life program. Amazing service bay. And our sales consultant, Dave Glover, was just so cool. This is a guy we'd have as friend: Former military (like my husband), small kids (like us), likes video games (like us). Dave is a straight-talking, common-sense kind of guy, and we have already recommended him to our friend who knows he wants a Ford Escape, but hasn't yet decided between the regular vs. the hybrid.

So, kudos to Toyota for having the idea of putting in that 3rd row and kudos to Ford for creating an excellent small-class SUV made in the USA.

1 comment:

Pish Posh, @imakeagoodhat said...

What sort of mpg do you get on Red? Especially around here?