Anne is tired of taking the train to the city and I’m tired of walking to to work in the rain, so we’ve been talking about getting another car. We’ve been a one-car household for 4 1/2 years now. We really like our CR-V, but it’s sometimes inconvenient to rely on only one car, especially when one of us goes away for the weekend for whatever reason. It will only get worse when Anne put lots of miles on the CR-V driving to San Francisco.

So we started researching cars.

It was surprisingly easy to come up with our criteria. We were looking for a car that:

1. Was reliable. After having owndd some of the least reliable cars (Chevy Cavalier and a Mercury Topaz), I just didn’t want to deal with the worry, expense and inconvenience of having to repair a car.
2. Got good gas mileage. Since Anne would be driving it to the city, the better mileage it got, the more money we’d save over the CR-V. We actually used MapSource to figure out how many city and highway miles were on her commute, then put the numbers into a spreadsheet to calculate the yearly gas cost.
3. Was short! Part of the challenge of working in San Francisco is finding parking, and the smaller your car, the better chance you’ll be able to squeeze into that parallel parking spot.
4. Was cheap. We really didn’t want to spend a lot of money on this car, especially because we’ve survived without a second car for so long.

Some quick research on the Internet turned up a few models that most closely matched our criteria – The Honda Civic, Toyota Prius, Civic Hybrid, Toyota Echo, Mini Cooper, Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus.

The Hybrids (Prius and Civic) were cool, but were more pricey. 50+ miles per gallon was definitely attractive, but when we did the math, the reduced gas requirements wouldn’t offset the additional cost of the car for like 10 years. So, they were out. Sorry Mother Nature, this wasn’t your day.

The regular Civic is a good, reasonable car, but we already have a Honda which is based on a Civic. They’re unbelievably reliable, but also pretty boring. They’re not exactly cheap either, even for a stock model. Plus, I’m philosophically opposed to having two cars of the same brand. How do you know which ice cream flavors are best if you always have vanilla?

The Mini Cooper definitely had the coolness factor and gets great gas mileage, but it it’s not cheap other, is not at all reliable accoring to Consumer Reports and requirespremium gas. I guess we’re just not that cool.

The Golf seemed like a good choice, but it also has reliability problems. The New Beetle had the same problem and was even more expensive. I really like the Passat though and maybe someday we’ll get one of those, but it’s not what we’re looking for right now.

The Ford focus is a Ford. Unreliable. Nixed.

That left the Echo, which seemed like a reasonable small car. Not very exciting, but it seemed like it would do the job reliably and cheaply.

Then we accidentally came across another car, the Scion xA. Scion? What the heck is that? It’s actually Toyota’s new brand, targeted at capturing the youth market. They only started selling them in June and only in California. They’ll be rolling out to the rest of the country in 2004. It’s pronounced ‘sigh-on’, like ‘sci-fi’.

The reviews we read were really positive for the car, even with only a 108 hp engine. And it comes fully loaded in the standard configuration – power windows, locks, mirrors, a kickin’ stereo system by Pioneer with a CD player that plays MP3s(!), air conditioning and more.

It met all our criteria – Toyota’s reliability record, 154 inches long (only behind the Mini and MR 2), 38 miles per gallon, and best of all, only $13K for an automatic. Wow.

Like Saturn, the price is non-negotiable. You pay what’s on the window sticker. While normally I’d rather negotiate than pay all the dealer markup, it’s hard to complain at $13K.

There’s also an xB model which is a really funky-looking small SUV, but we definitely didn’t need that.

After researching for hours, we couldn’t really find anything not to like about it. On Saturday we headed down the closest Toyota dealer to check it out. It was actually pretty nice and the styling inside was interesting, looking somewhat like a Mini. The most shocking feature was the odometer and tachometer placed in the center of the console. ‘Alex’ the car dealer was a little slimy, but didn’t pressure us. He also didn’t seem to know the car very well. We checked out a used Echo (the only one they had), but it definitely didn’t excite us and the Scion seemed like a much better value. Some of the reviews went so far to say that there’s no reason to buy an Echo.

We left for other errands of the day. I was amazed that I had that much self-control to not buy the car.

After some more research that night, we went out to another dealership on Sunday. We liked ‘Dave’ better and went for a test drive. It had decent pickup for a 4-cylinder car and drove well. The seat was pretty high for a small car, making it easy to get in and out. The back window is pretty small, especially with the headrests blocking it, but the headrests come out to leave sufficient room to see behind you. The trunk space is pretty much non-existent, but the seats fold down in a 60/40 configuration AND they’re removable. Since we already had a car for cargo, this would definitely suffice.

I quickly forgot about the display being in the middle of the console. It’s actually kind of nice not having to look through the steering wheel and it made it easier to see the road in front of you. Anne drove it too and liked it, even practicing parallel parking. For a short car, it doesn’t look small at all. In fact, it looks like they shrunk a minivan. They didn’t have the one we most liked (gray, automatic, no options), so they said they would call when they got one in stock.

More research at home and we chatted about casually during the week. I was pretty much sold, but Anne wasn’t quite read.

On Wednesday, my ploy to convince Anne that a Segway would cost 1/3 as much failed miserably. Oh well, that wouldn’t solve the problem of getting to work in the rain and I’m not sure if I wanted to be stared at and known as ‘The Segway Guy’ at work.

Then one dayvAnne got annoyed on her train ride to work, and when she finally got there, she sent me an email. “We should just get the car.” “Dave” called too and said they had one in stock. I really wanted to buy the car in Sunnyvale, since it was so much closer and if I had to go back, it would be more convenient, but Dave helped us more and I didn’t want to deal with Alex. I still had a bunch of questions though, so I called Dave back. He wasn’t there and I left a message. Dave didn’t call back, so I called Sunnyvale again instead. Apparently ‘Alex’ had quit in the last 5 days for some reason, so I talked to ‘Fred’. He answered all my questions, so I told him I’d come by. Sorry Dave.

I went down there found Dave, and checked out the cars. I found the one we wanted. It was actually the same one we looked at on Saturday. This must have been the easiest sale Fred ever made. He started it up and I opened up the hood, pretending that I really knew how to inspect the engine of car. He took down the VIN and we went inside to fill out the paperwork.

I must have signed my name 20 times. So much paperwork in buying a car. Even so, it took only about an hour. When we bought our CR-V, I remember it taking 4 or 5 hours, but that’s probably because we weren’t nearly as decisive and it took a while to get the crappy 11% Honda financing on the spot.

After the finance guy tried to sell me an extended warranty and other crap (I declined), I signed my name a few more times, paid for it, and that was it. It’s amazing how quickly you can spend that kind of money. Of course it wasn’t $13K by that time, not with stupid CA taxes (8.5%) and licensing fees. I miss New Hampshire.

Overall, it’s a pretty cool car and a great value. I’ve been looking for them on the road for the last week and haven’t seen any, so I imagine I’ll get some looks until more Scions are on the road. It definitely doesn’t scream “I bought a cheap car” either, like the competitors in that price range like the Kia Rio or Chevy Aero. It’s not a car that you’re embarrassed to drive around by any means.

The only problem is that it’s not “my” car, it’s Anne’s, so I won’t drive it much, except on weekends. Well, I hope she enjoys it. Merry Christmas!