Last Saturday, in the midst of this rabbit-based drama, my wife and I started discussing the possibility of picking up a newer, more reliable, and still under warranty vehicle. We did some research that afternoon, focusing on highway mpgs being >40. Came up with a short list including many of the hybrids & diesels on the market, ideally under 5 years old, and sub-70k miles or so. That evening, we decided to hit up a few dealerships and check out local selection and pricing. The first dealership we hit was chevy, because it happened to be the closest. Were checking out one of the new diesel Cruzes they had in stock when a salesman walked up and said, "Checking out the diesel, huh? Want a test drive?" Yeah, why not, seems nice enough even though the price is substantially higher than what we were looking to spend. I was a really nice drive - Leather, heated seats, back up camera, etc. Handled well for a non-sporty sedan, and had really decent pickup, especially from part-throttle. Once we got back to the dealership, salesman wanted to talk price, and we said "Eh, we're more looking for a few years old, sub $20k, etc. Have any of those in stock?" He says no, I say give me a call if you get one in in the next few weeks, and we take off.
Check out a few other vehicles, and mostly mark them off the list - due to pricing, discomfort, lack of local selection, etc. We sort of settle on keeping our eyes open for good deals on low-mileage Priuses, TDI Passats or Jettas, or the outlier diesel Cruze.
Skip ahead to Tuesday afternoon, when my phone rings and its the chevy salesman. He says that they've just gotten a shipment of several '15 Cruzes and he's talked to his sale manager, suggesting that they ought to drop the pricing on the 2014s and he has somebody interested. Manager tells him to bring us in and we'll try to work it out. Wife and I discuss, and go down there Wednesday afternoon. It goes well, we showed up with a firm number we're not going to go above and a spreadsheet for price, apr, payments, etc.(Wife is an accountant). LSS - I'm now the owner of a new Tungsten (Dark Grey Metallic) 2014 Cruze CTD with the "Driver convenience" and Pioneer Audio packages. So far, it's been really nice and I'm looking forward to shaking it down next weekend on a few hundred mile road trip.