...in with the new.

If you read my post about when I bought my bike, then you might have a good idea by now that big purchases are not taken lightly around here. In this particular case, I spent months reading, researching and going to dealerships. And it's not like I don't know about cars. I enjoy reading about cars and the car industry in general but still, the hard, and annoying work of going to look and drive the cars can be tedious. Anyone who has dealt with an overzealous salesperson that won't let you go knows what I mean.

When I bought our family mini-van, I literally test drove them all before buying one. But that was easy. There are not that many of those on the market. This time around, I decided to buy a mid-size sedan. Aside from pick-up trucks, it is probably the most competitive segment in America. Pretty much every brand has one and they are all quite good in their own way. Here are the cars I tested:

1. Hyundai Sonata
2. Toyota Camry
3. Chevy Malibu
4. Mazda 6
5. Honda Accord
6. Subaru Legacy
7. Chrysler 200
8. Ford Fusion
9. Kia Optima
10. Nissan Altima
11. Volkswagen Passat

Yup. Every single car. I'm sure that between this, and the bicycle post, some of you are concerned that I might suffer from OCD or something like that but I assure you, I don't do this all the time. However, when it comes to buying things that are gonna be in my life for a long time, I stress the details. After all, you are gonna have to live with your decision for a long time, hopefully.

After much deliberation, I decided the Mazda 6 was the top choice, followed very closely by the Chrylser 200. After all, both Motor Trend  and Car & Driver magazines named the 6 the best mid-size sedan (they hardly agree like that) and both also noticed the incredible improvement Chrysler made with the 200. I agree. Both drove very well and had everything I was looking for. In the end, I chose...

That's right. I went with the 200. Why not the top choice? Two reasons: First, the 200 has a much more pleasant interior and a killer info-tainment system (that's the combination of radio, bluetooth, phone, entertainment and driver info) and that was important as the car is basically going to be my office and I will spend a lot of time there.

Second, And I know this is gonna sound weird from a guy who technically doesn't live in the U.S. and even a little sappy, but I bought it because it is made in the U.S.A. America needs to build stuff again. If I want it to build stuff again then I need to buy stuff that's made there. So, even though the 200 was slightly more expensive, I went with it. By the way this isn't some political sermon or anything. Please, by all means, go buy whatever vehicle suits your particular needs and wants. As you saw in my previous post, I have owned cars from several other countries including Japan, Korea and Germany. But I had a choice and decided to support our workers. It's just the way I feel.

And besides, have you ever seen anything cooler??!! Sorry for the overly dramatic shots but the wanna-be photographer in me could not help himself. 20 years owning cars and I still can't get over how good cars look in black, even if it's a pain to keep clean. This particular model, the 200 S, comes with black accents so the blacked out effect is pretty awesome, especially with the dark wheels. Elegant, yet still feels like "me".

Looove the wheels

Huge Screen

The interior is full of goodies to make your life easier and it has been a big change to be able to control everything from the steering wheel and my voice. I'll spare you my review of the car but it rides very well. It's a bit on the firm side because of the large wheels but I don't mind as they improve handling and traction. Very happy person right here.

By the way, sorry it took me so long to reveal which car I chose but it rained the whole week after I bought it. I wasn't about to show you a brand new, dirty car. Also with this post I'm also delivering on a long overdue promise I made you guys to take pics of the "Ruta del Ciclista". That's where these pics were taken so you can imagine how terrible it must be to ride bicycles there on Sunday mornings.

Yeah... really sucks to ride here. lol

So that was it. New car. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.