We've been looking at second vehicles for a while now, and while I was happy to wait a bit longer - Jordan was ready to buy now. The plan is to park the Escape except for big shopping runs (ie costco and camping trips and use the Kia for all of our commuting. We drive up to 100KMs getting to and from work. So buying now made sense for a few reasons:
- Start saving on gas now
- Protect the last 5,000 KM of warranty on the Escape before it expires
- Convenience
- We can afford it
We actually specked out and test drove the following vehicles before narrowing it down to the Kia Rio and the Chevrolet Spark. While in the price range, we tossed these ones out early on:
- Fiat 500C
- Only had two doors, and no headroom w/ the sunroof option, cheap finishings
- Hyundai Accent
- Felt cheap, glove box hit my knees, not as comfortable
- Ford Fiesta
- Cupholder in door was annoying, no arm rests, lot pricing not consistent with online pricing
...and these once we're just too pricey (I wanted the car to be under $20K)
- Toyota Yaris
- Mazda 2
- Honda Fit
- Dodge Dart
- Nissan Versa
The prices of the two vehicles were so close and the comfort and drive ability so well matched that a few small things sealed the deal.
It was a very close tie, but in the end the Kia won because of a few things:
- Kia is one of the few sub-compacts that has a proper duel armrest for both front seat passengers instead of a single arm rest for the driver only.
- Kia had an 'oh shit handle' for the front seat
- Leather wrapped steering wheel
- 5 year, 100,000KM bumper to bumper warranty (the others were 60K)
- General fit and finish
One of the biggest reasons we bought the vehicle now (instead of when I get pregnant which was the original plan) was to start saving on gas now, so naturally one of the biggest decision making factors was fuel economy.
Kia wasn't the bst - but came in at a very respectable 6.9L/100KM in the city and 5.3L/100K on the highway. For my American readers that's a range of 34 to 44 MPG and for my European readers that a range of 41 to 53 MPG.
Jordan and I tracked our fuel consumption for the last few months and are confident that we will save at least $100/month if not more on our gas bill.
Wowza! So this post is already longer then I had planned on - tomorrow I'll share a few more details about the fuel savings and how that's going to impact the rest of the budget.
I know you have a plan!
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