It's A Rio!

It's been a long week in a lot of ways. Overlapping meetings, a winter storm, leaking ceilings, ongoing staff transitions, and waiting to bring home the new car.

Dennis and I spent Sunday afternoon looking at cars. I test drove four: the Kia Rio Hatchback, the Kia Soul, the Honda Fit, and the Ford Fiesta. I really thought I'd be coming home with a Soul. But it just didn't feel good on the road, and the seats didn't seem to fit my body all that well. I really wanted to like it, but it wasn't the car for me. I also wanted to try the Rio and liked the look of the new hatchback over the new sedan. It just felt nice. It became the standard for all the other cars I tried. I also wanted to like the Fit, but it wasn't what I was really looking for. The Fiesta would have been my second choice.

Not only was the Rio the best drive, Kia was also the best sales experience. There was no hard sell. There was no feeling of circling sharks. We were handed the key and allowed to take the cars for a test drive without anyone with us. The Honda dealership was one of several that were obviously owned by the same franchise. The salesman went with us on the test drive. Although the first sales person that greeted us was not new car sales and took us over to the new car division, when we were finished he followed us back to Dennis' car trying to interest us in other models. The Ford salesman really pushed even after I said I wasn't going to buy the car that day. He gave me a ridiculously low price. It was very tempting, but I stuck to my position.

Monday I called the Kia salesman and put the financing paperwork in motion. Originally I thought I'd pick the car up yesterday, but with the impending storm, I scheduled it for today. Now the new car is home.

It has an automatic transmission, only the second car I've owned that hasn't had a manual transmission. Given where I'm living and how much less driving I do, the automatic transmission makes more sense. It's also not my 2001 Kia, which was pretty basic. The 2013 has the rear camera, radio controls on the steering wheel, cruise control, and so much more. Something that wasn't even an option when I bought my old car is the ability to plug my iPod into the system. Isn't technology wonderful?
< br /> Now I need to figure out where to donate the old car.