Project New Car!

As if we haven’t got enough on our plates already, we have now commenced yet another project - Project New Car.

With a baby on the way, and coinciding with our search for a new home, Andrew our finance guru thought it would be best to roll the cost of purchasing a new car into our mortgage. My car, Tom the yellow Holden Cruze, has served me well for the past 7 years, and even though it is still in "near new" condition, having clocked less than 50,000km since driving out of the showroom in August 2003, it was time to consider upgrading to a bigger "family" car.

Jonathan and I had differing ideas as to what would be the most suitable new car. Jonathan wanted a car that wasn't too much bigger than Tom, and in a more acceptable colour. I wanted a bigger version of Tom, either an AWD or 4WD, that sits higher in traffic than a sedan.

In any case, we are in agreement on a few things - the car had to have automatic transmission, it had to have ample boot space (for a pram, a stroller and the groceries), and the back seat needed to be wide enough to fit 3 adults (or a baby capsule, a child's car seat and a booster) comfortably. It also had to be within a certain price range, and it had to come with a good factory warranty.

After some extensive research, we narrowed our wish list to Kia Sportage and Mitsubishi Outlander.

The Kia Sportage had received some good reviews, and with a warranty of 5 years | 130,000km, we were keen to have a look at this car. Jonathan was rather taken with the Mitsubishi Outlander, which came with the Diamond Advantage 10 | 5 years warranty, and I was more than happy to have a closer look too.

After our disappointing house hunting expedition, we headed to the Kia dealership in Waitara. The models available for our viewing were the basic model and the mid range model. We chose to sit in the mid-range model, which had the nicer seats and trims. There was plenty of leg room in the front, and the back seat was quite spacious. The dash had all these new and spandangly looking buttons, which looked very swish. The boot was deep and wide, which was great.

While we were waiting to collect some information, we were talked into having a look at the Sorento, the big brother of the Sportage. Neither Jonathan nor I were taken with the Sorento - it was far too big for Jonathan's liking, and I felt the same way.

The Kia dealership shared the lot with the Holden dealership, so with time on our hands, we wandered over to inspect the Capitva range.

What we didn't realise prior to wandering over was that the Capitva range had 2 quite different cars - the Capitva 5 and the Capitva 7. The Capitva 5 had two different models: the manual and the automatic, whereas the Captiva 7 had three: the basic, the mid-range and the top of the line. You may have guessed what the numbers mean - the Capitva 5 is a 5-seater, whereas the Capitva 7 is a 7-seater.

As the Capitva 5 seemed to be a limited range, we investigated the Capitva 7 range a little further. Certainly, the Capitva 7 was very spacious, ticking all the right boxes, and with 7 seats, we would never run out of room. The dealership had a special running, with a bonus electric sunroof and side steps with every Captiva 7. I was keen on the Capitva, and in fact have been keen on a Captiva for ages, but Jonathan wasn't so keen. His argument was that it was bigger than the Sportage (and yes, it was marginally bigger), and he felt the Sportage was big enough already.

On our way home, we drove past a Mitsubishi dealership and decided to pop in to have a quick look at the Outlander. We had to walk past the newly released ASX, which Jonathan had shown an interest in. I wasn't keen on it, because the ASX was more or less a newer version of Tom. And I was right. Even Jonathan conceded that the ASX was a lot smaller in real life than it looked on the TV.

We climbed into the Outlander and had a closer look. The first thing that struck us was the lack of leg room in the front passenger seat. Whereas the Sportage and the Captiva had ample leg room, enough space for an adult to sit crouched on the floor next to my feet with no trouble at all, it didn't feel quite the same with the Outlander. The back seat was also less spacious. And while the Sportage and the Capitva both had 3 anchor points for baby / child seats in the back seat, the Outlander only had 2.

Now that we've had a look at 3 cars, we are keen to have a look at others that are similar to these 3. There's no rush - we won't be buying the car until after we've bought the new home, and we can only really go car shopping on the weekends when we don't have Mina for sleepovers.

Here's to the start of yet another exciting project!