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As Carey is in need of a new car, we spent a little time today driving around to visit some local car dealers to sit in some cars (no test drives yet!!!) after we revisited D'Amico to retrieve our forgotten garage door opener.

At the Kia dealership we looked at the Sorento. We'd later add the Sportage as something to consider later on. They've changed the look of these two models from their 2005-2010 lines and they look a LOT nicer. The Sorento is built in Georgia and comes with a LOT of features. The Sportage does as well (but is still made in Korea, I think). Incentives are $1000/$500 cash back and a $1500 competitor reward because we have a Forester (even in its current state).

We stopped in at the Nissan dealership because the Rogue was next on the list. A neighbor recently purchased a Rogue and loves it, and it comes in at a little less than the price and with similar features as the Sorento. Incentives are $500.

Then we looked at the CR-V, which we had ruled out last year because it felt clunky, didn't look very good. You still seem to pay about $3000 because the car says "Honda" on it, so that makes it cost similar to the other cars while not being as fully equipped. No incentives or cash back, but the salesman said he'd yet to have anyone walk away ((I joked he'd only been working a week and a half.)).

We stopped at Toyota, but the RAV4 still looks ugly to us, inside and out, and seems roughly as "overpriced" as the Honda without quite the same "reliability" and "safety" ratings to back them up.

Carey likes heated leather seats, a nice moon roof, and something that'll work with her iPod. I like Bluetooth so that she can do hands-free calling (she doesn't like the Bluetooth headsets I gave her and instead just doesn't use her phone when driving). Again, we're looking at the upper-tier packages in each car.

Frankly, I don't know that we can go wrong with any of them, but right now Carey's leaning towards the CR-V and the Sorento. The Sorento is a bit bigger, has a third row of seating, a V6, more sophisticated controls (like keyless ignition), a better warranty, and an awesome split panoramic sunroof. The CR-V costs a little bit less, is roughly the same safety-wise, and is more reliable albeit with a lesser warranty.

We've bought our last two cars out of state and we'd like to avoid the hassle of paying taxes here in PA, having the title converted from out-of-state to PA, etc., BUT we're not willing to pay much more than a hundred bucks or two for that priviledge. We've been very disappointed in the negotiating tactics used by Erie car dealers in the past (i.e. "this is my price and I'm sticking to it.") and very happy with the deals we've gotten out of state. Here's to hoping that the Honda, Kia, or Nissan people aren't like that and are willing to deal. We've identified other PA dealers that we'll call as well. It is December, after all, and car dealers are trying to hit their yearly numbers AND that nobody buys cars in December, so we've got that going for us.

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