Car shopping: hard

[akawil]

I haven't posted here in a long time, but I've had a significant life status change lately. To wit, as of this past November 1st, I'm no longer at the university where I'd been since 1990 as undergrad, grad student, and post-doc.

Instead, I'm now working at a small start-up in New Jersey. It's fun, exciting work, and so far I'm having a good time.

However (the point of this post), the start-up is not in a place which is conveniently reachable by public transportation. I've rented a car from Avis, but the cost of this is adding up quickly. So I need to buy a car.

Buying cars is hard.

My company has (through the company we contract our HR through) a program with Toyota which gives us a no-negotiation-required discount -- $200 over dealer's invoice on new cars, and similar margins over the dealership's purchase price on used cars. So I've been looking at Toyotas.

At first I looked at a used Corolla, but the price they quoted me on it was $16,000 -- apparently they paid too much for it -- and that's essentially the same price as a new Corolla, so today ladymondegreen and I went to test-drive a new Corolla.

And we didn't like it. The ergonomics of the interior are awkward -- there's an oddly-placed handle where I keep bumping my head -- and the suspension is way too stiff, so we feel every little bounce and jolt of the potholed Jersey City streets we were testdriving over.

Larger Toyotas (the Camry, and the like) are bigger than I'd really feel comfortable driving, and also seem too big for the fairly teeny parking space I've rented.

So unfortunately I'm now back at square one, and ladymondegreen suggested I post to my Livejournal.

So, what do people like in compact cars, for about the $16000 range, in either new or trustworthy used? Any recommendations?

Comments

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

[Disclaimer: I'm still not entirely clear on what qualifies as compact. To me, anything smaller than my 1972 Catalina looks tiny, which is to say everything put out in the last twenty years.]

We have been, for the most part, happy with the Saturn. Not very happy at all with the scoundrels at the dealership, who have (it turns out, we discovered recently) been merrily charging Steve for work that was covered under our warranty, but I partially blame myself for leaving it in his innocents-abroad hands. Ahem. But the vehicle has answered pretty well. I am given to understand that the company has become more and more borgish over the years, so it may not be any better than J. Random Automotive these days.

(We have the SL2, because the engine on the SL and SL1 were lawnmowerish, and this was the lowest one with at least a pretense at acceleration.)

Brian bought a used Hyundai Elantra, and is well-content.

Beth loves her Nissan Altima in ALL CAPS.