Well, after 11 months of having my Mustang for sale, and putting 17,000 miles on it in that time, I finally got rid of it.
Short story:
Reason selling the Stang: gas prices, high insurance for my age, tons of problems both mechanically and body work wise.
I was going to just buy a used Honda, Toyota, etc. with the money I got from the Mustang. It got to the point where the Mustang was listed at $11,000 and I couldn't find a decent Honda/Toyota, etc. for around this price with less than, say, 60-70,000 miles.
I certainly didn't want to finance a used Honda w/ 50,000 miles priced at $15,500.
So, what's the next best thing? Look at new cars.
I looked at many many vehicles over the last year, however, a lot were out of my range because many dealer's were only giving me $4,500-$6,000 therefore, monthly payments were way out of my range.
I ended up finding a dearlership that would give me $7,500. The GM looked at the car, and liked it even more, so it was up to $8,000 trade-in. GREAT!
The new car is............ 2007 Nissan Sentra 2.0S
Color: Black w/ dark charcoal interior
Options:
CVT Automatic (must)
cruise Control w/ trip comupter (MPG avg., dist. to empty, etc. etc.) (cruise was a must)
Allow wheels w/ ABS (was a must)
Extras that I didn't care about but we worked out the price:
Rockford Fosgate 8 speakers w/ subwoofer(s) and 6CD changer
bluetooth
leather steering wheel
floormats and trunk cargo net
body colered splash guards
and a few other things I can't think of
This vehicle was about $1,600 more than the other one I wanted, but the other one didn't have alloy wheels w/ ABS. Therefore, we had a lot of negotiating to do.
The loaded Sentra (the one I bought), had been sitting on the lot for awhile, and therefore they needed to get rid of it since they are paying interest on it. I really felt like I got a great deal, and I got a very good trade. They ended up giving me $9,400 for my trade and knocking down my down payment by $2,100.
I saved about $3,000 off sticker! That's pretty good for a semi-entry level car.
The car also is equipped w/ this intelligent key. If you haven't heard of it, I basically don't ever pull my keys from my pockets, ever. Once I'm within 31"'s, I press a button on the door handle to unlock the car. Then I push in the ignition and turn (like there was a key in the ignition) the car on. It's pretty cool, but taking a lot of getting used to. There is a hard backup key just in case.
I bought it last night, and am already average 31.8mpg. (mostly city)
The car had a few spots of marring on the black paint. I wasn't very pleased, but I took care of it all today.
Detail today:
Wash w/ DG901
Wheels w/ DP Gel Wheel Cleaner
Tires cleaned w/ AA foam and wiped and dressed w/ AA Gel then wiped down
Fender wells w/ AA Foam
All black trim w/ 303
Wheels are machine polished/cut so I polished them with some DG Aluminum polish
Windows w/ Stoner's IG and AIO by hand on front and rear window
Also AIO as a base on the front and rear bumper, side mirrors, and side rocker panels
Paint polishing:
Edge orange pad w/ OP/PO106FF(at times) with rotary or PC
Green CCS pad w/ Pink Moose via PC at 5.5
LSP:
Souveran Paste
I also removed the dealership's emblem, replaced the stock headlight bulbs w/ Silvania Silverstars, and bought new license plate frame (not pictured). They frames look very nice.
A teaser:
on my face.
Linear Mode
