Introducing our new Honda Civic! She does not have a name yet...I'm thinking either Civi (original I Know) or Paige (after Paige from Scorpion since we just named our new computer Walter from scorpion.
I had been looking for a car for along time and as I mention in our summer leftovers post, we drove a lot of different vehicles, which meant there were a lot of different features we considered. In the end, the things that I decided were the most important were:
-Backup camera: We only looked at cars with a back up camera from the very beginning because it is such an important safety feature.
-Android Auto/Apple Car Play: All the cars we looked at had bluetooth interface with your phone, but everything is going to Android Auto and the functionality is much better. Since I use my phone a lot to listen to things while driving and because I go out to clients I wanted that interface built into the screen.
-Push button start with keyless entry. Again, in 5 years all cars will have this and it was something that I wanted for convenience and also, because it would just be so nice.
That is it, those were the things I decided mattered most. In addition, Lydia made it very clear that she wanted a car with an open top. So it was good that in our final choices, they all had sun roofs.
That left us with two top choices, the Honda Civic and the Hyundai Elantra. Both had similar features, but at the same price point, the Elantra came with heated leather seats and electronically adjustable seats. However, the Honda's have a much better reputation and while we have liked our Hyundai's, our Accent had it's engine die at 130,000 miles and our Elantra does not have a lot of value at 150,000 miles. When Shantel and I talked about it, we realized that it would be better to pay a little more and get something that will last us a really long time since we hope that I'll drive this for 10 or 11 years and then our kids will drive it. In addition, there were two other factors. 1) It turns out that I did not really love the leather seats in the Elantra, they just looked a bit funny. The cloth seating in the Civic actually looked better. Heated seats would be nice, but I did not actually think I would use them a ton. The automatic adjusting seats are the one thing I would miss, but I'd rather have the reliability of the Civic. 2) I mentioned the things above that were must have's, but the other was having the color that I wanted. The Elantra's did not have any good looking blue's, I was hoping for a navy. They were out of White Elantra's and it was going to be an extra $300-$400 to bring a white Elantra from another dealer. However, the Civic I could get in White or a dark blue.
Originally we wanted a car in the $16,000 to $18,000 price range. As we started looking we found that the higher level packages included some really great safety features like smart cruise control and lane keep assist. After lots of discussion, we decided the extra couple thousand dollars that these would cost would be well worth it. As a side note, I l have loved the smart cruise control, it has been really nice driving to work.
We negotiated a price at a few Hyundai dealers to see where we would end up. Then we went to one Honda dealer to negotiate pricing from them. Finally we went back to Ken Garff Honda and negotiated the price. At the prior Honda dealer they would not budge below $24,000 out the door, but it seemed like if we would commit to buying they might be able to get to $23,500 out the door (including taxes). So we shot for that. After discussing price and going back and forth a bit, they told us they could do the $23,500 out the door we wanted, if we would finance the car through them. We had been planning to pay cash with money we saved, and even though you could pay the car back within 6 months and close the loan, it would still mean a few hundred dollars of interest and the hassle of doing it. We decided to stay firm and told them no. They went back and were able to get it to us for $23,500 out the door. We ended up paying $21,122. We felt pretty good about this because Ken Garff pretty much posts the price instead of haggling a ton, so to even get $500 off the posted price was pretty good.
Once we decided to buy we had one more decision to make. White or blue. We drove a dark blue with gray interior and a white with black inside. I thought I would want the dark blue, but we did not love the gray interior. We loved the white with black and decided to go with that and are so happy we did, it is perfect.
I have really loved the car and and it has been nice for driving co-workers as well. Android auto and the maps/navigation has been so nice. Welcome to the family Paige.
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