Car shopping…. how I wish making the decision can be easier

Since I got back from Colorado Springs, Colorado US. It is the 3rd round that I am thinking to get a new car replacing my faithful 10 years old Proton Iswara Aeroback. 10 years ago, I was still ridding on my Suzuki RC80 motorcycle where I had 2 accidents within the same month and I finally figure out it is rather too dangerous for myself to be on the motorcycle especially I have to work late very often.

There is when I started to shop around for a car.. started with some used car as a fresh graduate could not really afford much of a decent car even that I like the Honda Civic, Honda City Type Z, and the Toyota 1.3 SEG ( yes, you didn’t read wrongly, Toyota is still having their Cololla SEG in 1.3 Liter model… after a few round trying my luck in used car. I have pretty much gave up and start checking out Malaysian’s “Favorite” car brand.. the Proton. The 1.3 Wira Auto with Fuel injection just been introduced with the price of RM39k, I brought my parents together to the showroom and the Sales Advisor managed to convince us and booked the car.. but we did not planned for it and hence the SA asking us to return the next day to pay the RM1k booking fees.

Upon ruturned home, I punched my Casio Scientific Calculator very hard… it is going to be hard on me for getting the car.. on the next day, I called the SA that I wanted to cancel the car booking… since I haven’t paid anything. There are nothing for me to loose. Another few day passed.. I walked in the showroom again checking out the Proton Iswara 1.3L Hatchback and ended in getting it for RM35k. Gosh.. I am damn stupid, saving RM4K doesn’t really make a big different… and the worth part is, I got myself a loan interest of 7.9% for 5 years.

10 years have passed with this car and it has not really give me any big problem thought… It is seems like the same thing happen again when I am considering getting my next car. Reading a lot from forums trying to find out which car is good and which is bad. Learn up some basic information about car’s features and what do they meant.. what is important and what is not.

Taking another step further, I started to walk into showroom.. looking at those cars.. and without long, I started to asking for test drive. Hey, I never test drove any car before when I got my first car and after I got the first car. The few other cars I drove are all rented car when I was in the States. These are the cars I tested in recently.

– Honda City 2009 1.5L

– Honda Jazz 2008 1.5L

– Honda Civic 2.o FL

– Mazda 3 Sport 2.0L

– Peugeot 407 FL 2.0L

– Peugeot 308 Turbo 1.6L THP

– Suzuki Swift Sport Auto 1.6L

– Suzuki Swift Sport 5S Manual 1.6L

– Hyundai Avante X20 2.0L

– Nissan Sylphy 2.0L

– Kia Forte 1.6SX

I originally placed a booking for the Nissan Sylphy 2.0L back in Octorber but after a month, I called my SA that I wanted to cancel the booking. My SA with Tan Chong has been very helpful on following up with the RM1k booking fee refund but I am yet to receive the refund to date. ( Part of it was due to I put the different signature on the cancellation request notification with the Hire-purchase documents I signed during the booking and hence have to redo the cancellation request )

So, here I am again, still struggling on which car to buy. My selection criteria are rather unique compared to the common majority and hence I am not going to talk much about it. In general, I am looking for a car that in my mind is a good car, offering a good package for the price and the most important factor is it has to be a safe car where the car MUST offer the feature I talked about in my Previous Post.

With that factor in, there are only a handful of cars that I can still looking at if they have to fall into my budget. These cars are the Honda Civic, Toyota Altis, Peugeot 407, Peugeot 308, Kia Forte.. and probably some that I still missed out since they never come across my mind. So, it is time again to start crossing some candidates… Many maybe will think the choices are obvious in the list.. that either the Toyota or the Honda would definitely be the natural top brand to consider..

But don’t be shock to see this.. the final  3 that still in my mind now are the following

– Peugeot 407 :  A D segment car by the French which suppose to be the competitor to the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry but selling at a C Segment price range.

– Peugeot 308 Turbo : A warm Hatch C segment car by the French that Actually gave me a whole new experience taking it on the road. I have never felt that “Surprise” offered by the Turbo Charged Engine.

– Kia Forte 2.0SX : A brand new B/C  segment car from the country of Kimchi that making the world look at the Korean Automobile business differently.

It is a tough choice to go beyond this.. I think it will take a while for me to figure out which will be the winner. Or even there is chances that all 3 of them will be taken out from consideration if there is something more interesting been offered before I am able to make up my mind…. until then.. good luck to myself.