The "I want a new car thread" buying guide.

[Crazed_Insanity]

There are only 2 vehicles that suits my mission requirement... a PHEV that can tow 6000 lbs! Those vehicles are: BMW X5 and Jeep 4xe. X5 sorta lost out because it's more expensive and doesn't have a full size spare! So Jeep is pretty much the only game in town for me.

I've see horror stories on 4xe forums, with brand new owners experience problems right off the bat. It is probably the most complicated vehicle Jeep has ever put together. Nevermind the complicated powertrain, it also has a fancy ride height adjustable air suspension... not to mention all the computer electronics. Anyway, some new owners had issues with suspensions making clunking noises within 1st few hundred miles... and dealers do not even know how to fix! Eventually lemon law allowed them to sell it back to the dealers...

Anyway, so far with around 150 miles in, luckily I'm still trouble free! Hopefully my 2023, being 2nd year in production, is improved and built with love?

My dealer also has a 7 day buy back guarantee... so if I experience anything bad right off the bat too, then I can just exchange the damn car! Hope it won't come to that.

So far I do have one complaint though... that is this relative higher trim model doesn't come with rear cargo cover. I asked the dealer about giving me one because I'm not going to buy one for a leased vehicle! However, dealer claimed that it's on back order... nobody has any! She said she even tried to snatch one from some other new vehicle, but even top of the line model cars don't have them! Pretty unbelievable.

Anyway, whatever, if it can tow my RV camper well come summer time, then I can still be a happy camper I guess.

[MR2 Fan]

Considering trading in my RAV4 (nice but boring) in for a recent WRX, like 2021-ish, would be nice to have a turbo awd manual transmission car and probably keep it stock

[Tom Servo]

I am apparently completely copying MR2 Fan. With the situation with Michele's dad, she's talking about driving back and forth more often and will want to take the XC90 when she does. She's encouraging me to replace the 13 year old RAV4, and I just test drove a WRX today.

I fucking loved it.

Pretty much the perfect balance of sporty but livable for an old fart like me. Boxer engine still sounds great around 3k RPM, good clutch, slightly sloppy shifter but that's fine. Practical but fun. Pretty sure I'm buying one.

[Yw-slayer]

Do it.

[Tom Servo]

I think I'm gonna. All the US dealer systems are still fucked after being h4x0r3d, but the plan now is that I'll talk to the dealer on Wed. to work out the financial details and then take the car as soon as it arrives. Rally blue in the Limited trim.

[Yw-slayer]

DO IT!!!!!!!!!????!??!????!?!??eleventyjivesiz

[Cam]

Hi, I’m Cam and I approve of purchasing a WRX.

[George]

Aren't they pretty small, though? I say this as someone who admired my former next-door neighbor's twenty-teens WRX for years, but then I'd look back at my Honda Accord and think the Accord was larger...and it was not a big car inside for a tall person.

I always thought a Forester XT with a manual transmission would be more practical but still fun, but now I see they stopped making those many years ago. I imagine the ones that survive have all been modified by young guys trying to go faster and/or look cooler.

Funny story, though. And I've never ridden in a WRX (or even a regular Impreza, that I can remember), but I've always assumed they're very fast. Well, my neighbor gave his son a hand-me-down Ford Windstar minivan he had inherited from an uncle or something when the son finally got his license at eighteen. Some kids are like that these days - just not interested in driving.

Before our neighbors moved away after the young man graduated high school and was heading off to college in the same state his parents were moving back to, somehow it came up in conversation that the dad had never let the son drive the WRX. I asked him why not, and he replied with something like, "Are you kidding? Those things go from [some small number of] horsepower to over [some large number of] horsepower just about instantly when the turbo kicks in. You can't put a teenager who has only been driving a twenty-year-old minivan for a few months in something like that."

[Tom Servo]

Heh, well, surprising fun fact: It's about two inches longer and half an inch wider than our 2011 RAV4. I actually fit quite well in it, I was able to move the seat farther back than I was comfortable with, and I'm 6'2". I did adjust the driver's seat to what I wanted and then attempted to sit in the rear seat behind the driver's seat and was able to fit there as well, though headroom is a bit more of an issue in the back seat. It's actually quite roomy, no problems with size, the back row might actually be even more spacious than the second row in our XC90.

It's reasonably fast, though I think my racey driving days are long behind me (thanks, bicycles, now I have this thing where I don't want to drive like a jerk anymore). I don't know that it's going to blow the doors off of anything, but it's the only car in the segment that isn't FWD and can at least pretend to be practical. Good trunk space, four doors and rear seats that can accommodate full sized humans, and that boxer engine just sounds so damn good.

[George]

Cool. Didn't know they were so roomy inside - at least where it matters, for the driver. Hope it works out for you.