...the one behind the wheel

I spent my pre-Lent Sunday not in any Mardi Gras celebrations (it is Lundi Gras today, by the way), but rather on a test-driving spree--all before the Super Bowl. After getting a much-needed haircut, I went off and test drove 5 of the 10 cars I'm investigating to replace my soon-to-be-11 year old Saturn.

Now, according to my designs/plans, I won't be buying any car for 5-6 more months; this is just the beginning of review of things. According to the Dodge salesman that showed me the Avenger (which I basically confirmed I didn't like) and the Caliber (at left), I'll be getting my car before Ash Wednesday ends: he said the typical buyer gets their car within 72 hours of looking. Given that I won't have looked at all the cars I want to check out before Wednesday, I'm somewhat doubtful of my falling into that...

My original plan was to test drive just two cars: the Volkswagen Jetta (pictured first above) and the Hyundai Tiburon (at right). This did have me driving around a wee bit, as the VW and Hyundai dealerships I know of aren't exactly close by, but it was alright.

I headed to the VW dealership and as I was taking my test drive I spotted a Dodge dealer just up the road. So I figured I might as well stop off and check out the two cars there, to see how they are (I'm actually mostly interested in the Dodges because of the orange color they have available--which is shown above, and which my sister insists I shouldn't get, although placed next to a car who names means "shark" in Spanish, I'm not sure how unbiased my sister's commentary is when in opposition to anything shark related...). And then afterwards headed over to where the shark awaited...

After grabbing a quick bite to eat and trying to cool down a wee bit (it was warm here on Sunday, and my slowly dying AC in my Saturn wasn't doing too well), I reached Hyundai and pried a test drive out of them (though I did need to find a car without a sunroof to get head clearance).

Following the Tiburon, I headed home to prep for a looming Super Bowl party. On the way, I passed by a Honda dealership and decided to stop-in and test drive the Civic Hybrid (above left).

So, not too terrible, but I don't know if I'm any closer to narrowing down my options... course I still have those 5 others to check out... hasta and have a good Fat Tuesday tomorrow.

Drive
I'm yours to keep
Do what you want
I'm going cheap