Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Branches New England What to do....What to do.

So I've been test driving a bunch of cars and trucks over the past week.

Mazda 3S 5-dr - 5 speed - great interior - nice ride - good amounts of response with the 5 speed - Very nice ride - Very impressed especially for the price.

Mazda 6s 4-dr - 5 speed - ech..... Liked the looks on the outside and the interior was nicely done - but it just felt sluggish.

Dodge Neon SRT-4 - Loud - Very tourqy - Tons of tourqe steer - Not too comfortable on the highway - 2 years ago - I would have DEFINATELY bought this car....Interior leaves room for improvement.

Saturn ION Redline - Nice - I thought the engine was quite loud - Nice handling - tranny felt notchy even after warming up.

GMC Sierra 1500 4x4 (used) - Liked the leather interior and the tranny shifted nicely - It was a V8 that got 22 MPG Highway apparently (have to do more research on that).

Going to go test drive a new Chevy Colorado and a new Ford Ranger today. Chevy has 0.0% financing on leftover 2004's and so does Ford. I like the look of the Colorado 10x better than the Ranger - but my buddy Victor from Tasca is urging me to get the Ranger instead.

What should I do?

Buy a new car with at least 30mpg highway that is cheap and reliable (travel 42 miles one way to work) and then buy a sh*tbox truck for like 2k?

Ech.....

Help me out! Voice your opinion.

buy the beater truck
lease the reliable/economical car in case you have a change of heart in a couple years. Judging by your posts in the past, your tastes have changed in your desired vehicles (even though you ended up sticking with the 'tours), so the leasing would probably help with that.

Mike's friend Ben has jumped from car to car (all of them brand new) and he never leased.
His reasons are because of his high miles.
But my thinking is, even if you're putting high miles, the mileage penalties can't be much worse than the $600 a month payment he ends up with because he keeps trading in cars he still owes on.
btw, Ben now owns a Colorado
in the 5 years I've known him, his car ownership went like this:
Ford Ranger
Cougar
F150
Land Rover
now Colorado

I like the Mazda3. Every time I see one I think its a good looking car for the money.

A Saturn??? Please say nooooo.

the redline was actually fun to drive - but you're right - I can't shake the "saturn" jokes from my head - so that's out of the question.
i would end up buying the 5dr hatch mazda3 if i went this route.

Definitely hatch Mazda 3. Nice car.

I am wondering, why do you need a truck at all? I thought half the purpose for getting rid of the Contours was to have one less car in the driveway?

Having a house will make you realize how "nice" a truck can be. Especially with the yard and all....

Perfect Example - I went to Home Depot the day after my wedding (cruise was delayed a day) to purchase a mail box.
The new development I live in finally was registered with the city so the mail would start delivery that week.

I go to Home Depot, purchase the mail box, the 4x4 post and realize, the box that the mailbox came in is very large.

I was able to put it in the back seat barely - but we're talking a mailbox here....

Then I start thinking, how am I going to go buy a friggin wheelbarrow? a shower door, etc...

I'm constantly worrying about that stuff. I would keep the truck at my mom's anyway - my stepdad would be able to use it more than I would especially with his yard. But it would be nice to have a truck in the immediate family - and since noone does....it makes it difficult.

PM me if you go with a GM product. I can save you $$$.

Buy the car with good mileage and then buy a beater truck. If you buy a nice truck and do all that driving your going to be kicking your own butt around the room when you're getting 20MPG or so on the highway and gas prices get up close to $2.50 / gal. like last winter while you know that you could have bought a car that gets over 10 more MPG.

Then you can get the beater truck and use it for doing stuff around the town and taking care of your dirty deeds (done dirt cheap).

I would have to say a reliable and the truck. A car with great gas mileage would be the best root. Plus you would have the space a truck could give. Sometimes i wish i had a truck, the contour trunk is the smallest ever. There have been countless times that i havent been able to get something in that trunk space, lucky we have a volvo 240 trunk space is huge. Plus you might save on insurance have the 2 older ones verses a brand new one.

Good luck
Matt