{"id":94,"date":"2003-06-14T15:29:14","date_gmt":"2003-06-14T20:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=94"},"modified":"2003-06-14T15:29:14","modified_gmt":"2003-06-14T20:29:14","slug":"vroom_vroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/14\/vroom_vroom.html","title":{"rendered":"Vroom-vroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of the Fathers Day weekend festivities, we went car shopping today.<\/p>\n

Volkswagon Passat<\/a>: It’s amazing, dismaying, and a bit annoying when a particular car model has versions that MSRP from $22K to $40K. It’s also annoying when all they want to show you are the W8 4Motion versions with leather seats, walnut paneling, and chrome-plated lunch dispensers. The salesman was annoying. Didn’t test drive.<\/p>\n

Cooper Mini<\/a>: Very comfy front seats. Back seats just about Katherine’s size. Very reasonably priced. Rather cheap plastic accessories in the interior, if you play with them. Signed up for a test drive next Friday afternoon. What the heck — we may reevaluate the “needs to be able to carry adults in the back seat for short distances” requirement.<\/p>\n

Toyota RAV4<\/a>: I’ve been curious about the mini-SUVs — better head room, better drivability in bad weather, moderate gas mileage. The RAV4 isn’t a bad vehicle, but it drove in a rough, lumbering fashion with not all that much sense of power or pep.<\/p>\n

Toyota Matrix<\/a>: A “cross-over” vehicle (woo-woo), noteworthy for a nice interior, flush-folding seats, and a 115v outlet in the front panel. All-Wheel Drive is only available in the top of the line, in both manual and automatic. Unfortunately, all they had was the base automatic to drive, which was seriously gutless. I was disappointed, but might see if I can find something a bit meatier to try.<\/p>\n

Subaru Forester<\/a>: I was surprised when I saw how big the Forester actually is. This outing, we sat down in one, and, well, it seemed okay, but there were enough other, more promising Subarus that we never got around to test-driving it.<\/p>\n

Subaru Baja<\/a>: As Margie said, “Is getting a pickup truck one of those Guy Things?” The Baja is a small sports pickup — it seats four comfortably, and the open bed (extendible with an additional package) can carry stuff. We took it for a test drive, and — well, it rode better than the RAV4, and seemed to have power enough. but it still felt … heavy<\/i>. It wasn’t “sporty” — it was a heavy car with a bed. Certainly better than a kick in the head, but not quite what I was looking for.<\/p>\n

Subaru Impreza WRX STi<\/a>: Whoa, Mama. I’m in love. The priciest of the cars we drove, but, man, a hell of a lot of zip, pep, and turbo-charged smile-generation. The back seats were plenty comfy, the trunk is no smaller than the Saturn, and the mileage is quite reasonable. And with all the fine Subaru all-wheel-drive and the like, it seems like a fine all-weather vehicle. I’ll be honest in saying this vehicle has the lead so far.<\/p>\n

Plenty of research left to do — and new research to do. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

Oh, and we bought a new area rug for the dining room (tip to sale going on at Carpet Exchange coming from Doyce). Yay, us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of the Fathers Day weekend festivities, we went car shopping today. Volkswagon Passat: It’s amazing, dismaying, and a bit annoying when a particular car model has versions that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cars"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4329,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/09\/23\/vroom_vroom_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":0},"title":"Vroom-vroom","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 23-Sep-03 10:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Went down to the local John Elway Subaru dealership this evening and drove around Impreza WRXs. 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BD was down for dinner, so he tagged along as an Extra Adult To Cram In The...","rel":"","context":"In "Cars"","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":675,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/09\/01\/vroom.html","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":4},"title":"Vroom","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 1-Sep-01 9:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I have grown old enough that I have given up hope of owning a motorcycle. I know it's dumb. I know it's dangerous. 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