With the inescapable fate of progeny looming in my future, The Wife has occasionally prodded me to trade in my current vehicle, a 2000 Honda Prelude SH with which I have a long-standing and admittedly perverse love affair, for something with four doors.

Car shopping is probably the only kind of shopping I enjoy, or even tolerate. For someone like me, car shopping is a journey years in the making. I generally don't prefer brand new vehicles, as their high prices and immediate depreciation make my bunghole pucker. However, when I know I'm going to need a new car in the coming three years, I'll peruse the current new models so that I know what will be on the used lots when I'm finally ready to buy. If you drive it while it's new, you'll have a baseline to compare it to when it's used. Plus, there's the no-strings-attached test driving.

Lately, I really like the 2008 Acura TL Type-S
. Of course, for that to drop into the price range I'm comfortable with could easily be three years. The '07's are still in the high twenties.

I thought briefly about the BMW M3, but quickly dropped that idea for two reasons. One, I don't think they come with 4 doors; and two, I may be a prick, but I'm not nearly the prick it takes to drive an M3. Of course, there are still a variety of 3-series sedans which can be had for the mid twenties with low mileage. That I could go for, but there's something about a BMW that makes my reliability gauge waiver. I'm just not sure they've got what Toyota or Honda do.

Speaking of Toyota, there are some very nice IS models out there. I remember when these first started coming out about four years ago. They fall perfectly into the sporty sedan genre. I was very close to buying one when I bought my prelude, but they were a little outside my range. NOw they can be had for the low twenties all the way up to the high twenties depending on model year.

The spoiler for all of this, though, is that none of these cars are all-around better than my current vehicle. The Prelude handles better than all of these sedans do. It gets better mpg than all of these sedans do. The only two areas where it fails are power (175hp vs the mid-200's these sedans make) and space. Lack of space is a fairly weak argument, since the Prelude has four seatbelts, so I could put a child seat in the rear.

Of course, it also doesn't help that the Prelude is paid for with only 63,000 miles on it. Which means two things:
1) It's a 'free' vehicle
2) No one will ever pay me what I think it's worth.

The autophile and the miser inside me are muddying the waters. The issue has become far too nebulous for me to make a clear choice. I suppose I should take that as a sign that it's not buying time yet. Sigh. I suppose I'll just keep window shopping until an ultimatum surfaces.

Posted by: shank at 11:57 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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