Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] advice on mid-MO car dealerships wanted...

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:

> I bought a used Mitsubishi Montero from them (it was 2 years old).  
> I have found the car very reliable, and also very resiliant in
> accidents (perhaps too much so as the other car doesn't do so
> well).

This is one SUV issue that doesn't thrill us, but moving on...

> Perhaps its only disadvantage is that my wife thinks the ride is a
> little too rough for her, but otherwise I have been extremely
> happy with my purchase.

I really, truly, want to buy a car.  They used to make dozens of 
staions wagons, and now less than a handful in our price range.  
We do want some space, but we really don't want to lose as much 
ride quality (or quietness) as you do with most SUVs in our 
price range.  And getting decent gas mileage wouldn't hurt.

That said, we did get to test-drive a new (2004) CR-V today, and it
went a lot better than the first test drive and overall slightly
better than the second one (both were used cars of the previous
model).  I still wish it were quieter, but the package overall is
quite good, and, being a Honda, it's pretty much a given we could
get a pretty good price for a trade-in if we decided in a year or 
three that we wanted something more car-like.  So the five cars we 
drove that ended up really impressing me were:

1) Mazda6 wagon (still a contender)
2) Honda CR-V (I wonder if you can "drop" it and put on 15" tires. 
   :-))
3) Mazda3 hatchback (a four-door hatch that might out-do the Honda 
   Civic)
4) Dodge Magnum (but it's a first year Dodge, and it's $26K...)
5) Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix (needs a quieter engine, then it's a 
   really great car).

Five very different good cars, 3 of them are brand new models, and 
all but the CR-V are truly cars.  As usual, more competition will 
mean even better cars down the road (heh).

Now I also think the Malibu Maxx will end up being a really good
car, but there is now some evidence that it was not immune from
"first year disease".  The Element and RAV4 also look like good
deals, but they really don't seat 5 (the Element doesn't even
pretend).  

jking

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