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Took an extended test drive of a Mazda 3 wagon today. While it was dark blue instead of the medium blue I preferred, it otherwise had the options (and lack thereof) that I wanted. Short form, I bought it and will take possession on Thursday (financing through my bank, something I can't really take care of today).
It was a good test drive. I managed to cover most of the sorts of places and roads I go to and on, and once I figured out how I'd accidentally gotten into pseudo-manual mode (the gear shift has two meaningful axes, not just one), it worked fine. I even got the chance to see if I could play "Oh no you DON'T" to an asshole who decided to start passing cars after the "DO NOT PASS" sign before a lane ending. I was able to utterly deny him. The drop from 205hp to 160hp is noticeable, but not functionally a problem. And then turned off on my exit a few seconds later. :) I also liked the cruise control controls, letting me bump up and down from the steering wheel.
I did find the ride less smooth than I'm used to, especially on the state highway I usually take out to Junction City. This is mostly because I'm used to Old Fogey Suspension on my Buick Regal, and the Mazda 3 has more of a sport-tuned suspension where you're supposed to have a better feel for the road (aka feeling more of the bumps). Still, despite my back pain from messing up my back yesterday, the extra bumpiness wasn't a big problem.
In general, I found the 3 wagon to be a little less comfortable overall than my current car. In addition to the suspension issues, you simply don't get as much cushy factor from a $18000 car as from a $35000 car (I got the Regal used in 2000, but it sold for 35K in 1996). Plus, some of the geometry will take getting used to, like the window sill being a couple inches higher than I'm used to, and less padded, or the armrest being maybe a centimeter lower. The smaller steering wheel will also take a little getting used to. Still, given that I can't afford to get the current equivalent of a loaded Regal, it's acceptable.
The interior damage to my Regal meant a lower trade-in value than Edmunds.com suggested, but I still got better than the "Fair condition" value. They also knocked $400 off the sticker price on purpose and $80 more by "accident" (sticker price was $18880, dealer may have read it as $18800 by accident, or deliberately dropped the eighty bucks as a stratagem to make me feel like I was getting a better deal than he proposed). Mazda financing sucks, to the point where even the $500 rebate they offer in down payment matching wasn't worth it, so I'll be financing through my credit union, which pre-approved me for 5.5% (the best the dealer could do even with outside financing is 5.7%, and with no down payment matching) and skipping out on a meeting on Monday to do the financing details.
Tomorrow afternoon I'll take some time to clear out the crap from my car and maybe bag up the stuff I want to transfer, so I can just grab a couple bags and haul 'em over to the wagon. Some of it doesn't really need to transfer right now anyway, like the shovel, de-icer, scrapers, etc. And it turns out that Kansas makes it a LOT less hassle to transfer stuff between cars than Michigan and Ohio did, so I won't need huge blocks of time to deal with that paperwork. I even get to keep my current license plate (when I lived in Ohio, the old plate acted as a temporary plate for one month, but you had to officially change it before the month was up...something that came as a rude surprise to me five months later when I was trying to renew a plate that didn't officially exist anymore).
Guess I get to turn this into a completed drawing now. :) (Note: I updated the sketch with the head and left arm design on April 9.)
It was a good test drive. I managed to cover most of the sorts of places and roads I go to and on, and once I figured out how I'd accidentally gotten into pseudo-manual mode (the gear shift has two meaningful axes, not just one), it worked fine. I even got the chance to see if I could play "Oh no you DON'T" to an asshole who decided to start passing cars after the "DO NOT PASS" sign before a lane ending. I was able to utterly deny him. The drop from 205hp to 160hp is noticeable, but not functionally a problem. And then turned off on my exit a few seconds later. :) I also liked the cruise control controls, letting me bump up and down from the steering wheel.
I did find the ride less smooth than I'm used to, especially on the state highway I usually take out to Junction City. This is mostly because I'm used to Old Fogey Suspension on my Buick Regal, and the Mazda 3 has more of a sport-tuned suspension where you're supposed to have a better feel for the road (aka feeling more of the bumps). Still, despite my back pain from messing up my back yesterday, the extra bumpiness wasn't a big problem.
In general, I found the 3 wagon to be a little less comfortable overall than my current car. In addition to the suspension issues, you simply don't get as much cushy factor from a $18000 car as from a $35000 car (I got the Regal used in 2000, but it sold for 35K in 1996). Plus, some of the geometry will take getting used to, like the window sill being a couple inches higher than I'm used to, and less padded, or the armrest being maybe a centimeter lower. The smaller steering wheel will also take a little getting used to. Still, given that I can't afford to get the current equivalent of a loaded Regal, it's acceptable.
The interior damage to my Regal meant a lower trade-in value than Edmunds.com suggested, but I still got better than the "Fair condition" value. They also knocked $400 off the sticker price on purpose and $80 more by "accident" (sticker price was $18880, dealer may have read it as $18800 by accident, or deliberately dropped the eighty bucks as a stratagem to make me feel like I was getting a better deal than he proposed). Mazda financing sucks, to the point where even the $500 rebate they offer in down payment matching wasn't worth it, so I'll be financing through my credit union, which pre-approved me for 5.5% (the best the dealer could do even with outside financing is 5.7%, and with no down payment matching) and skipping out on a meeting on Monday to do the financing details.
Tomorrow afternoon I'll take some time to clear out the crap from my car and maybe bag up the stuff I want to transfer, so I can just grab a couple bags and haul 'em over to the wagon. Some of it doesn't really need to transfer right now anyway, like the shovel, de-icer, scrapers, etc. And it turns out that Kansas makes it a LOT less hassle to transfer stuff between cars than Michigan and Ohio did, so I won't need huge blocks of time to deal with that paperwork. I even get to keep my current license plate (when I lived in Ohio, the old plate acted as a temporary plate for one month, but you had to officially change it before the month was up...something that came as a rude surprise to me five months later when I was trying to renew a plate that didn't officially exist anymore).
Guess I get to turn this into a completed drawing now. :) (Note: I updated the sketch with the head and left arm design on April 9.)
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