plonq | Car choice 2011

After doing a lot of research, a couple of test drives, some more research and another test drive, we finally settled on one of these to replace the Saturn:

2011 Outback Sport

The Sport package came with (most of) the features we wanted in a car, but after we tricked it out with all of our desired options and upgrades it came out at the high end of our car budget. On the other hand "at the high end of the budget" means that it still fit inside the range we were willing to spend, so we put a $500 down payment on it today.

The dealer only had one car in stock that matched our criteria, but it was not in our first choice of colour; we had our eye on the green one. On the other hand colour was not a deal breaker for us, and we both agreed that the graphite scheme looked pretty sharp as well. To be honest, that was my second choice after green anyway so it wasn't a big sacrifice. We did the same with the EOS when we took the white one over the blue one, and we've never wallowed in regret over the decision.

If all goes well, and our extra parts show up soon enough then we should be picking it up next weekend. We could have driven the car home on Tuesday and gone back for the additions when they arrive, but the dealership is at the far end of town from us, and we didn't want to make the trip more times than necessary.

Among the upgrades we bought were upgrades to the stereo. Normally I wouldn't have bothered with that for a utility car like this, but I decided it was a quality of life upgrade in the event that I end up commuting to our new office next year.

In other news, my company is moving our office next year. I may rant about that in a friends-locked post later since I will probably end up saying things that might upset my employer.