Change of Plans
After many ruminations and a second drive of the Mazda3, I changed my mind, but not for a reason I was expecting. You see, last Saturday my wife and I went to the Mazda dealership to buy a Mazda3. We had everything ready. We just needed one last test drive. So I took the car out and onto I5 northbound. Now there's this interesting thing about I5 here in Seattle: most of it is concrete, and much of it is in pretty bad condition, which makes for a loud ride at the best of times. But in the Mazda3, it was outrageously loud on the stretch between 65th and 85th -- so loud we were shouting at each other to be heard. Even though it was the exception, if I wanted to shout in a car to be heard, I'd get a Miata. So we went back to test drive the Acura TSX and again, it was a fine car and thus were our plans changed.
The bidding process was interesting. I had done my research on Edmunds.com and on kbb.com and on consumerreports.org. I had a pretty good idea what the car was worth, and what my used car was worth. So I used the web sites of the three dealerships to get bids. Interestingly, two of them answered in minutes with good, low, competitive bids. The most convenient dealership, however, took over a day and wouldn't give a quote by email (or fax). A few phone calls later, I had a price that no dealer was willing to undercut, and by 3:30PM yesterday afternoon I was in signing paperwork. A surprisingly pain-free process.
Of course the new car has more electronics than an Xbox, so I'll be happily immersed in software for the next two weeks.
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2008
PingBack from http://geeklectures.info/2008/01/01/change-of-plans/Anonymous
January 02, 2008
One thing that is surprising is how much of a difference that the tires that the car ships with has on road noise. Years ago on my Honda Accord I switched tires from whatever it came with to a set of Michelin 4 season tires, and I swear the noise was cut in half. But I guess that tip won't help you much now :) Enjoy the TSX!Anonymous
January 02, 2008
You know, I thought about that after the fact. I changed the tires on my Miata a few years ago to get better traction and noticed that the noice actually reduced a bit. But this was LOUD loud loud. Tires would have helped a little, but I don't know how much. Anyway, I'm now happy in the TSX. Most fun: the built-in bluetooth.