Need Help finding a car with strict criteria
 

Im helping my gf buy a car and she is VERY picky.

Requirements

Blue or white Interior Lights. blue preferred.
AWD or FWD that is good in snow. AWD highly preferred.
Vanity Mirror in sun visors must have their own lights.(center ceiling lights not enough)
High quality interior with no obvious cheap plastics(we looked at Impreza but cup holder area had cheap plastic feel and look, and it had red interior lights and a very noisy CVT and no vanity mirror lights)
Sunglasses holder in ceiling.
Reliable
Over 32mpg highway. Car or SUV or hatchback. No station wagons or Minivans.
Must have more than 155hp and accept regular 87 octane gas.
ALL Black interior with Leather Heated Seats. White exterior.
Sunroof/moonroof preferred but not required.
USB port preferred, which is now standard on most new cars for charging phones or playing music off iPod.
Japanese or German. She refuses to buy American or Korean branded cars eventhough she likes the Hyundai Veloster Turbo and Genesis Coupe 2.0T.
Max budget. $26000. Prefer to spend less. Slightly used 2012 cars are okay but brand new cars are preferred.
Manual trans or Automatic no preference.

Closest cars we found were the 2014 Mazda 6 and 2013 Skyactive Mazda 3, but they are FWD only and have red interior lights with the new Mazda 6 having white lights. CX-5 was another choice, but it was $2,500 over budget in AWD trim and $5000 over budget with leather heated seats and sunroof. CX-5 is still the strongest contender so far. I think I can get them to bring the price down to $26k with strong haggling.

We do not care for GPS, HD radio, cruise control, back up camera's, or other tech.

She now drives an 01 Altima. 155hp KA24DE. She wants it to be faster, quieter, better handling, and better on gas than her Altima.

Keep in mind this girl likes Evo's and STI's and GTI's and 350z's. She would never go for a Suzuki or other econobox. She wants something that looks sporty, aggresive, and handles well.

has she thought about the new kia optimas forte or even sonata ? maybe velosetor turbo ? I don't know how there priced but there nice cars great interior and blue lights in the Hyundai sonata and velosotor

Step 1. Log off TST
Step 2. Call g/f and tell her to drive her ass to the dealers and look around
Step 3. Drink beers
Step 4. When she comes home with a new car say its nice no matter what.
Step 5. Sex in the new car

If this fails find one that isn't a PITA.

Step 6. Post nudes in the GB
Step 7. Find some strainge

get a new gf...

seriously. thats a lot of demands.

i would say get a luxury car because my lexus had all those except it took premium gas

Mazda 3's are close to what you've listed that except they have red interior dash lighting with blue/ white accent lights. Red is really much better for your eyes at night then any other color. But either way I'm sure you change out the lights to any color LED you want.

Are her preferences listed in any particular order. for instance are the lights of the dash more important then the mpg rating?

^ this. Chick needs to give up some luxuries in sacrifice of one or more of those criteria. Its called compromising.

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^ I added more steps that I think you will like


... and pics of g/f. 7 posts in and nobody said this yet. We are slacking on TST lately.

Yeah, we actually drove into the Subaru/Mazda dealership with a 2012 Sonata rental car(because of snow on my drive to visit her in MD), which had the smooth ride and blue interior lights and USB, but she hated how it looked and she hated the feel of the gas pedal, which was a bit heavy and therefor it makes you accelerate slow.

@mg23. That is not happening. I'm marrying this girl soon. I already got the house and ring. She is an engineer, latina, and she likes cars and super smash brothers. I can't possibly ask for more.

I am as picky as her when it comes to spending $26k on a car. It took her 3 years of careful saving to be able to afford a new car in that price range.

But yeah, the Mazda's are still the strongest contenders to meet most of her wish list. I was just wondering if there were cars I forgot. The new Accord also seems to be a good contender, but we have not test driven it yet. I drove an 08 Accord Coupe V6 a few months ago and I was blown away by how good it was.

@grim. No they are not listed in any particular order.

@jpalamar. I would post a pic, but I don't want anyone saving the pic for unmentionable purposes. And I will try to complete step 5 in your list.

Word.

car shopping with most women is terrible.

My buddies sister was trying to buy a new car about four years ago. All she wanted was four door and good gas mileage. Literally tons of cars fit the bill but she wouldn't like cars over the stupidest things, like the tail lights are too square, or the way the radio was laid out. After about four trips to the dealers we told her to buy her own damn car.

This thread just proves another reason chick's shouldn't drive...

2012 Mazda 6S

274hp, smooth as silk, 28mpg, 87 octane, nice soft touch materials, sunglass holder, vanity mirrors lit, heated leather seats, everything you said up there. plus some really nice extras

Damn, you must be allowing her to drive outside of the kitchen with all those wants. Next thing she's gonna do is learn NO.

:rotfl:

up until 2010 VW's had blue dash lights.

get her a CPO 2009 jetta.


boom problem solved.

You guys should have gone to the auto show! My first thoughts were the new Altima, Camry SE, Accord, VWs, I bet most of those would fit the constraints and are decent quality but I don't know about the interior lights color. My jetta has white guages but I forget what color buttons lol they could be red. You can change that though anyway just buy led replacements.

Yeah this was the first Philly autoshow I missed in the past 7 years. We went snowboarding in the mountains instead. We test drove a Rabbit/Golf and Jetta. But it was filled with hard plastics. They looked dull. The new VW Golf R has a nice quality interior and AWD and almost everything else we wanted, but $35,000!!!

how about a TSX?

They take premium and are glorified Civics. I do find it odd they can spend $25k on a car and are concerned over 30 cents extra a gallon though.

ah didn't know they only took premium. I know they have a nice interior and are some what fuel efficient.

Go with a kia optima. Chances are shes going to find something she doent like on it, women have a sad reputation for that. Get something easy on the wallet

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My sister is about as picky as it comes with cars and ended up getting a koup and loves it.

Like I said earlier, we test drove the Sonata, which had the blue interior lights she wanted, but she hated how it drove. Gas pedal feel, steering feel, etc.

I drove the 2012 Optima yesterday and it had red interior lights and the interior was noticeably cheaper looking than the Sonata. It had less features overall and it looked and felt like a Pontiac Grand Prix inside. I know she would hate it. The Sonata seemed like a much better built car than its Kia twin.

We test drove one 2 months ago. She thought the steering was too heavy. And yeah the premium gas was a problem. A few annoying issues with TSX's are their headlights and paint.

The headlights yellow up quickly and are sensitive to car wash brushes and micro scratches. The bold colors it comes in like blue and red fade out quickly if parked in the sun all the time.

Seems like your chick is impossible to please. Thank god I dont have one of those lol

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Remember, we are talking about a $600 car payment with insurance. That is a lot of money for us so she wants it to be as perfect as possible.

I would honestly get a new gf

And put a roof on the kitchen so she wont need to worry about the snow

sig worthy.. :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Oh absolutely, I get it. Just seems like there is no compromise in it. While it is a ton of money, sometimes you gotta give alittle to get what you want.

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But in all seriousness buy whatever you want, you buy blue led lights I'll wire them in lol

How would she be paying $600 a month for a car and insurance if she 'saved for 3 years'? I financed $22k with a personal loan, crappy interest as all personal loans do, and my car & insurance isn't even $600.

If I could do it again I wouldn't. $600 a month is alot of potential bacon.

Honestly this. You can get a great low mileage one for under your cap, and they feel much more expensive inside. My '09 was 16k and it felt like a 25k car easy

12,000 miles per year / 30mpg (average) = 400 gallons

400 gallons / .30 a gallon = $120 a year


Only $10 a month... that's like 2.75 gallons of regular... so ~80 miles a month you're loosing IF you even average 30mpg.


If $10 a month breaks your bank, you've got other problems. These numbers will apply for a long time unless they make premium go up more then $.30 then 87 octane.

I laugh when I hear people complain about having to run 'expensive' premium.

I haven't had either of those problems with my '06 TSX. Have you considered the ILX?

anyone can find something wrong with any car. even the same cars arent built 100% perfect then the one that came off the line in front of it.

Yeah, the ILX in our price range has 150hp. Too anemic. If you go for the 200ish hp engine, its about $29,000.

She made a late payment like 2 years ago, best interest she can get is 4%. Yeah she saved. $2k will go for downpayment. The rest is for emergency. She also pays apartment rent, bachelors degree student loans, phone bill for herself and her two sisters, internet and cable, and tuition for her Masters degree right now. She just made a $6000 tuition payment last month for this Spring semester. She can't afford to pay in full, but she thinks she can afford $600 per month max over 5 years based on what she has saved up and how much $ she makes each month. That is how we got to the $26k budget. It would be tight but it's possible. We are estimating insurance would be $150 per month for full coverage based on an estimate we got with Geico and progressive for the 2013 Impreza.

Its actually shocking how many new cars are premium fuel anymore.