After looking thru Craigslist. Scouring cars.com and autotrader.com. Driving thru many dealer lots, driving many vehicles. This last Saturday as I was coming home from my son's cross country meet. I stopped by the somewhat local(75miles away) Mazda dealer. We drove thru the lot and they had a used Rav4 and a Highlander so I decided to stop and see what they were asking for them. I talked to a dealer about the Rav4 and the Highlander. Both were out of my price range for a used car. I started walking around the lot and there it was. A dark blue Mazda5 Touring. The sticker price in the window was 12,999. Down from 20,000. That was a huge drop so I looked further. It was pretty hail dented. Early in July a big storm rolled thru and caused extensive damage to all there cars. Some of the cars were fixed others just marked down. This one had a $7500 mark down and $500 off from Mazda for being a 2010. It had lots of room in the back, great gas mileage, roomy seating for four people, seating for six people if two of them are "small" people. I could already see the bike racks on the top, back and a nice mounting board inside. So I asked the dealer for the keys and took it for a drive. It had a 2.5 automatic and was pretty zoomy really. Handled really well. Took it back and parked it. Popped the rear hatch and folded down the seats. I saw that he had another Mazda5 on the lot, also hail dented but with a window sticker of $10,995. This was a metalic red Sport model. No sunroof and a five speed manual instead of the automatic. Other then that, just the same. So I took it out for a drive. Wow, what a difference the five speed made. From a somewhat zoomy to a really zoomy car. It was such fun to drive. Even thou it looks like a shrunken mini van it was just a blast to take around corners and pull away from stop signs. Brought it back to the dealership and told the salesman I really liked it. I filled out paper work for a loan thru Mazda. It was closing time and the finance people were all back east and wouldn't be in till Monday. I had to work Monday and wouldn't be able to pick it up till Tuesday. So for two days I debated, looked up accessories, looked up mods, read reviews, and waited. Even with my "just ok" credit I got the 2.9% financing and I opted for the extended warranty of 10years and 100,000 miles. I could have bought a used car, but for the price I got new. Bike rack parts are being ordered as we speak. Many pics to follow.
