Car Bleg
The baby’s August advent means, among other things, that we must upgrade the car. It is unfortunate, too, because on the whole we have enjoyed our compact sedan. Sure, it’s slow and noisy and more often than not filthy and all the speakers are blown such that Melissa Block sounds like she’s speaking through a fan blade, but the car has served us well. It is reliable, efficient, and paid for—especially it is paid for. Moreover, the thing survived a tornado! 
But there is just no reasonable way to travel from Iowa to western New York, northern Virginia, or central Arkansas with a child and its accoutrements, a dog, and our own luggage in a Geo Prizm.
So I’ve been researching models and narrowing our choices by reviewing the basic information, such as fuel efficiency ratings, safety features, and general options, all of which is data that can easily be found online. And it is important information to know, don’t get me wrong. It will be our first step in cutting the list down to a handful. But after that will come a test drive which we will use to narrow our choices to one or two models altogether. The test drive will be where we discover how a car feels and how well it maneuvers to our satisfaction. Unfortunately, it has been nearly ten years since either K or I last test-drove a car. We only have vague ideas of what to look for. Help us out, then; give us an idea. What is it you look for when test-driving a car?
Comments
March 12, 2010
Shaun / Mar 12, 11:10 AM
Shortly after our own advent, we took the unusual step of downsizing our car. I had an old SUV with shoddy air conditioning and pitiful gas mileage, and the spouse drives 300+ miles a week for her job. So we decided to ditch the SUV for something smaller that would get decent mileage for the spouse.
We settled on a 5-door Mazda 3. We really love the car. It’s fun to drive (really tight steering), looks sporty for a cheap(ish) car, and we like the flexibility of the hatchback with good folding back seats. We’ve managed a number of trips to Texas and elsewhere in it.
Something I wouldn’t have thought of before we got that car, though, was backseat space. I don’t mean passenger room so much as the space between the top of the front seat and the top of the back seat. With a rear-facing child seat, that space becomes very important. When we bought the Mazda, our little one was soon to be front-facing, so we made do for about two months with the rear-facing seat wedged between the front seats, but we wouldn’t have wanted to do that for two years.
Best of luck.
greg / Mar 12, 11:41 AM
In my research I actually was intrigued by the Mazda 6 wagon. I drove a Mazda 626 for about three years; it was really fun. But apparently, Mazda quit selling them in the U.S. several years ago. It’s really quite disappointing, especially since the new ones look like this.
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