This beauty is 2012 Iridescent Silver Blue Pearl Hyundai Sonata, or simply: Pearl.
The two week long drama of looking for a car is over. And I am very happy with the choice.
I was looking for a sedan. A bit of an upgrade from my old Corolla. The cars that I considered were
Toyota Camri - Didn't like cheep knobs, handle in the middle of the arm rest on the door.
Honda Acsord - had a tremendous central console and overall 80s interior look
Nissan Altima - Liked overall look but didn't higher price with lesser warranty
Mazda6 - central console not too appealing, lower visibility in blind spots, and not perfect reviews
Ford Fusion - this was the only one I didn't test drive. I guess it wasn't a real contender after all.
Hyundai Sonata - excellent reviews and warranty, but lower blind spots visibility.
I started the process thinking I want a slightly used car, up to 10,000 miles. You know, because of that saying that new car looses 20% of its value when you drive it off the lot. But my experience with these low millage cars was not such. The price difference was just about $3K. Then I also realized that many car warranties are not transferable to the next owner. So then I considered both used and new.
I had my eye on a 2011 Sonata for several months. Pretty much this last year since I started thinking about a new car. And from the beginning I was just concerned with the high side and rear windows and how that affects the visibility. Well, that and just the fact that it's a Hyundai, a brand not that familiar for its quality and with some really annoying, cheep commercials (at least here locally). But my mechanic was advising for that one over Toyota, Honda, and Nissan saying how Hyundai quality went up and for these others it went down. Plus, the warranty was fantastic.
I first looked at the base Sonata model, GLS. It happened to be a used one, and even though it was base, the interior looked great. But at another dealership they showed be used high end model, Limited, and that one was awesome with all the upgrades: leather seats with warmers, lumbar power support on driver seat, navigation system, sunroof, .... all the bells. Those limited's didn't have my ideal color options, they were dark colors, or had high millage on them, so I kept looking. I was getting more than a little stressed out about it because dealerships didn't have used car I wanted and the time on paid rental car was running out. I would have extend for a week or so, but still it was a waiting game for the perfect used car to arrive.
About that time was when I started considering new cars and I realized I could have color and feature options if I get a new car. And, really, the price difference was only few thousands. And the warranty on a new car is 60K miles bumper-to-bumper, but on used one just 36K, minus the miles already on the car.
My friend Maggie suggested I look for new cars through dealership internet sales, instead of visiting them personally. For her it took a lot of pressure on price negotiations, and it worked great for me too. Since the price of new Limited was above my budget, but the base model didn't have some features important to me, like good seats, I started asking about the middle model, SE. Within a couple of days we agreed on the price and they were able to find that model in Houston. I paid the deposit and was supposed to pick up the car on Thursday.
Then I got an urgent message to call them about the car. Apparently the guy I talked to last about it (with internet sales they work as a team, not just one sales person) ordered a car with some upgrades that I didn't ask for, namely trunk spoiler and homelink feature. Now, I didn't know what a spoiler is. I googled some images and was shocked when those big, racing car trunk additions appeared. I had them send me a picture of the car they delivered, and it only had a subdued trunk lip spoiler. They kept telling how I am getting an awesome deal, because even without those upgrades it was an aggressive price. So, I went there on Thursday evening to purchase the car.
The hole day was tiring. I was already stressed out with time constraints up to that point, Ciro was feeling very sick and I had to drop her to the vet, Zoran left for India that Monday...So I just wanted to get it over with. As I was driving through rush hour traffic, I first realized that rental place is going to close before I get there and hopped that I could still leave the car there. Then I realized that the check book I was carrying with me those two weeks to the down payment was from an account that I closed when I thought my purse got stolen back in January. So, I basically didn't have money with me for a down payment that evening. The stress was only building up.
Then when I saw the car, that's when I realized, this SE model is a sports edition (maybe that's what SE stands for). It had two shiny mufflers, steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters, sports-tuned suspension, 18-inch hyper silver aluminum alloy wheels,...a sports car! It dawned on me that in all that test driving, I never saw the SE model.
I signed a few papers, and then they wanted me to call the insurance to add comprehensive coverage to my policy. They were surprised I was even able to rent a car with only liability coverage. The 1800 Farmers customer service was not able to change the policy, and I would have to call my agent in the morning to do that. And without that coverage the dealership was not letting me drive off with car.
That's where I just wanted to leave. Nothing was going right that evening. I didn't want to complete the financial part either. I just wanted to leave.
I didn't sleep well that night, and in the early morning started to think how I really don't like that car. All these factors just have me a bad feeling about it. So I emailed them back and said I don't want it because of that spoiler. It wasn't just that, but that's what started it.
We went back and forth on that Friday. I asked for the base model with several upgrades that were important to me, like window tint. It has comfortable power seats with lumbar support, really cool interior, and even has voice recognition! And for that same price as that sports model, I will be adding leather seats to the base model! They had that car on the lot, and before the day ended, I was able to drive it off! The leather was ordered and I will drop it off next week for a day to get it installed. The auto-dim rear-view mirror is still not available for aftermarket sale from Hyundai for 2012 models, so they'll replace that some time in the spring.
I thank everyone who helped me with their time, advices, and suggestions during this process. It took a village to help me find the new car. I couldn't have done it without you all!
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