NWR: Car Shopping

SillyLGoose

My car died over the weekend. Yes, be sad, I am. Of course it died in NY, on the highway, in the middle of the night but that's another story. Obviously I need to find a new car. The cash for clunkers deal really wiped out everyone's inventory. I am looking for a small car with good gas mileage to replace my 10 year old Hyundai Accent. I've weighed out buying used or new. With the wedding and house buying coming up I should save my money. I decided though that this will probably be my last chance in awhile to treat myself to a nice new car. My money is my own and I don't have kids and a mortgage. And I'll enter the marriage with a (hopefully) dependable car. What I am looking at is the 2010 Mazda 3, 2010 Kia Forte, 2009 Toyota Corolla, and 2009 Nissan Sentra. Anyone know anything about them....good, bad, indifferent?

erica02780

I dont have any info on those particular cars, but wanted to share some things to think about also, if you are the type of person who keeps cars a long time, I would suggest to make sure you get a car with a great warantee, I think, unless something changed, Kia and Hyundai still have the best 100K mile warantee. I get sick of cars too fast, but I think with a mortgage, getting married, and hopefully soon to have children, I think that is going to have to change :)HTH 

valerie102780

I actually have the Nissan Sentra (2008) same car though... I absolutely love it.  I can go 3 weeks without filling up and when I do I spend like $35 (at most) to fill it all the way up and that's from like hardly any gas in the car (I know it's bad).  Anyways, I highly recommend this car.  I got my car from Nissan City in Port Chester.  If you go there ask for Louis... he totally hooked me up.  I'm only leasing my car and put nothing down (I didn't have anything b/c I was getting married in like a month) and I only pay $266/month and I got the most hooked up that I could get... leather seats, bluetooth, fog lights, a great radio, sunroof. If you want/need anymore info just let me know, you can email me valerie1027802000@yahoo.com Good luck!

valerie102780

oh and I totally forgot to mention the BEST part... free oil changes for the life of your car.  hello! how much better can that be?  Plus the warranty is Phenomenal !

chryse

I have a Kia, don't get one. The cost for repairs outside the warranty is ugly. And they have no customer service. Yahoo recently buzzed this [url=http://customsites.yahoo.com/financiallyfit/finance/article-107543-2380-0-10-cheapest-cars-to-own-and-operate]article[/url] about the 10 cheapest cars to own. The Sentra is on the list. My family has owned 4 different Sentras throughout the years. Most lasted over 10 years with few problems. For me, I'd get the Sentra, then the Corolla, Mazda and never the Kia.

blondie157

my friend just got a mazda 3, and shes very very happy with it we rented a kia for a vacation once, convinced me not to buy one. i think sitting on bare unfinished wood would have been a better option. my word of advice is this: buy a year old car. whether that be one from last years model year that never got bought, or one that came off a lease early, you save a TON of money over brandnew. i bought a 2004 grand am in 2005, and i saved TEN GRAND over the new sticker price(i had priced out the options i got when it was new, cuase i had been thinking about buying in 2004). my parents have been doing this for awhile, and theyve also had similar savings. and if you car is super dead, dont trade it on one of those push/pull/tow type trades, find somewhere liek salvation army to donate it. friends of ours traded in their car without doing the research, got $500, was happy. then found out if they had donated it, they could have written off $1500 on their taxes. where im from in NY you can donate to BOCES, not sure where in CT you can donate specifically.

SillyLGoose

Thanks for all the replies! I've eliminated toyota just because when I went back they had absolutely NO corollas for me to test drive and it will take at least 3-4 weeks before they get ANY in! I called other dealerships and they are in the same boat. I'm between the forte and the sentra. The sentra is lacking in some areas compared to the forte (no bluetooth on the one I am looking at/lesser of a warranty) but it felt like a smoother ride and they depreciate much less. The seats were plushier and softer and the interior less "plastic-y" for lack of a better word. They are both asking for the same price. The forte I can get at 0% interest which is nice though. The forte is kinda just like a glorified version of my old car. Has more features but essentially just like the hyundai accent. I think I just talked myself into the sentra..lol. The mazda the dealership put me in was super sporty and had more features then I really need. It was a great car though. They want 6,000 more and it gets much less gas mileage. I'm having a hard time stomaching it. I might go back and see what the down-graded version is like.

SillyLGoose

I failed to mention that through all this my fiance's car broke down 4 days before mine. Also an older hyundai. He was not too smart and when it stalled and would not restart he thought it would be ok to push it to the side of the road. It then proceeded to travel down a hill before hitting another car head on on the other side of the road. (Luckily he was not in the car and the other driver is o.k.) It would cost over 6,000 to get it drive-able----and that's before finding out why it stalled in the first place. We are both without cars..lol. Can you just imagine if this happened when we were married? To answer the pp about car donation---that's exactly what I did. I live in CT but since it broke in NY the car was towed to a garage in NY. They told me it was the timing belt and when it went it ruined the whole car. It would cost $50 to junk it or a $60 storage fee for the time it sat waiting to get picked up for a charity. I went with the later option. I loved the car and wanted to spread it's love a little more.

lynde129

I have a Mazda3 and I LOVE it!!!! its a 2007 fully loaded that I bought in 2008, someone traded it in after a year for a bigger car, so I got it for 18000 used instead of 26000 brand newI highly reccommend Mazda3's in any version... and (for all cars) i highly reccommend buying a year old used car.. because it is barely touched yet soo much less $$$$!!