- May 17, 2002
- 910
- 3
- 81
Hi all,
I'm shopping for a "new" car. I've decided to limit my budget to under $35K and I'm trying to decide what to get. I'd like something a bit sporty and a good deal. It needs to have room for a car seat in the back. I'm mostly leaning toward a GTI right now, but I've been considering all sorts of different things:
I'm shopping for a "new" car. I've decided to limit my budget to under $35K and I'm trying to decide what to get. I'd like something a bit sporty and a good deal. It needs to have room for a car seat in the back. I'm mostly leaning toward a GTI right now, but I've been considering all sorts of different things:
- 2016 VW GTI - I'd get it with the 6MT, Performance Pack, and Driver Assistance Package. This puts it into the low $30k range, and I don't expect very good deals where I live. Somewhat worried about VW reliability...
- 2016 Acura TLX - Nice car that I'd be happy to drive, but it is a big sedan. I currently drive a big sedan and want something different. On the bright side, the sales guys were willing to take $3-4K off over the phone before I even walked in the door.
- 2016 Lincoln MKZ - (lol) Just for the heck of it I cross-shopped this with the Acura. I'd probably take a few digits off the average age of Lincoln owners if I got one. At the dealer they were asking WAY too much money ($40K without too many options) and wanted to play games negotiating, so I walked out.
- 2016 Chevy Volt - I like this car and would get it pretty much loaded, but it's pretty expensive even after the tax credit (~$30K). It's also a bit small. I could (sometimes) charge for free at work.
- ~2013 Nissan Leaf - These are so cheap it's tempting to buy one for ~$12K and just try it for a couple years. Just about anything I buy new would probably depreciate by $8-10K in two years, so even if the used Leaf continued to lose tons of value it would not be a bigger loss than a new car.
- 2015ish Audi A4 or BMW 328 - These are in the low $30K range. I don't know if I want to deal with expensive maintenance / service on these cars, but I could get CPO and not worry about it for ~5 yrs. I care 0% about driving a car with a luxury label, but I think these have some decent driving characteristics.