Well I decided to get another "beater" to supplement the aging 260,000+km Echo. Import Queen uses her car (visiting RN) and racks up ALOT of mileage in a given week in her IS300. It averages around 10L/100km in city driving. Not awful, but not good. Not to mention the wear and tear on her vehicle, including the break-in and theft of the contents of her car on one occasion, and close calls with the driving-dead on other occasions. So she's generally been taking the Echo. This is a good thing...in a given month, we save hundreds of dollars in fuel. Last month just by driving the Echo to work, we saved $300 for the month. A significant amount of cheddar IMO.
So with these savings in mind, I decided to get another fuel sipper for our "fleet". Although I haven't replaced the Supra yet, I'll need a beater when I do, since the car I buy will be summer only. I almost bought another Echo, since I know the reliability of these cars. Tough as nails and cheap, cheap, cheap to run. But I already have one of those, so something different was needed. Yaris? A bit too much $$ still IMO. Holding their value very well. I looked at some Civics, Acura 1.7 ELs, Corollas. Hmmm...I want something a bit different though. What about a hybrid?
1st Gen Prius' can be had for sub-$8k. Pretty reliable too by all accounts. But very high mileage for that money. And then I stumbled onto a 2000 Honda Insight. This makes sense for me, since it's only me driving the car to work. So 2 seats would work for me. Oh..and available with a stick. Little engined cars can feel anemic with an auto, so I wanted a stick. Oh yea..I needed to keep my "enthusiast" cred too!
So I set out looking for an Insight. I made a list of cars to look at for my Toronto trip...including some potential Supra replacements.
Once in TO I went and looked at a nice 2000 Insight. One owner. 100,000kms. All services up to date. Battery pack replaced last years under a courtesy program from Honda. And owners that were crazy about their car and didn't want to sell it. But with 2 kids, the Insight became less and less used. They bought a brand new Impreza hatch (for $20K), so it was time for the car to go. After looking at the car, knowing the history and how the car was cared for and loved by the owners, I bought it. Everything felt "right" about this car. Especially the way the owners took care of it. Oh it has some small dings and scratches from being parked on the street. The owners said all of these happened within the last year since moving out of a condo and buying a house which has no driveway. They were bitter about the nicks! But the car has no rust (it's all aluminum body). And no maintenance to do. I pick it up on Friday. Stay tuned for pics and mileage reports!
Also, I looked at some Supra replacements (or cars I've got on my list to own someday) while in town. A couple Lexus, an NSX, an SLK55 AMG to name a few. It was a couple of days. Garmin 265WT GPS comes in soooo handy while in TO helping me to get to where I need to go. Traffic monitor in it actually worked and saved me from being stuck in traffic the one day. NICE! My last stop was to look at an NSX. It was nice...but I didn't like the wheels, and the price was high. But right beside it on the lot was a Porsche Boxter. I didn't have much interest in Boxsters in general. But my list of cars to own include "Own a Porsche someday". So I looked a bit closer at it, just for...well for no reason other than curiosity. 1998, Black on Black, new roof, 100,000kms. Maintenance pretty up to date. Paint looked good. Didn't really see any blemishes. Not many options. Just your basics it seemed. Price? $16,000. Oh geez...seems low(ish) for a Boxster. Hmmm...if I ever wanted to own a Porsche, it would be tough to find a modern one for less than this. I drove it. For awhile. Then Import Queen drove it. For awhile. Overall, nice car. I wasn't "wowed" by it at all though. It was just "nice". But for $16,000....tough to pass up. Not many sporty roadsters you can get for $16,000 these days. So if I ever wanted a Porsche, this would be the one to get without busting the bank. I REALLY agonized over this car. I even tried calling GiantDwarf (Jeff) to get a 3rd party opinion. He wasn't answering...or had me on call block.
In the end...I passed on the Porsche. For now, anyways. If it's still available in a few weeks, you never know!
Anyways...I'll get pics of the Insight up when I get the car next week....
