Auto Mall Fun

My boy D-smooth needs a new ride. We are going shopping today. What should he get? Before I get into that let me tell you that I love to dress down at car dealerships. Last year my wife and I went to the local Acura dealer one Saturday morning, dressed like... Saturday morning, kids yelling and screaming (and sitting in the NSX) and the salesguy gave us NO time. He made it clear he just wanted to get rid of us. We went back later that day and dropped $45 grr on an MDX. It's a game and I enjoy it. Best ever was summer '87. I was 19 and out test driving. The dealer didn't know my dad had died and left me $50 grr so I would be paying cash... and in fact, I literally had the checkbook in my holey pockets of my shorts that day. Went to the Saab dealer to test drive the old 900. It was about $20 g's but homie wouldn't let me test drive it. He just wanted to show me pictures inside. I left and bought a new Mustang GT a couple weeks later. More on that car another time. Anyway, maybe I will put on my sweaty gym cloths, that are in my trunk right now, just to play it down at the dealership today....

As I mentioned before the dude had an old Ford Probe up until a few years ago so I would imagine he would be happy with an old Datsun B-210 like Dr. Dre used to drive!? I also believe that was the type of car that they drove players from the bulley to the mound at Dodger Stadium in the 70's!? Anyway, back to D-smooth. He's a family man so probably looking for 4 doors. However, he wants something sporty and quite possibly a stick shift. He would probably be comfortable spending between 40 and 50 g's as he is a big time CPA so he can afford it... but can't be too flashy because nobody wants to see their CPA driving something impractical like a Vette. If we narrow the search based on 4 doors and stick shifts we come down to these basic options:

Acura TL
Audi A4
BMW 3 series
BMW 5 series
Caddie CTS
Honda Accord
Infiniti G35
Lexus IS250
Mercedes C-class
Saab 9-3 or 9-5
Volvo S-40

I skipped the Hyandai's, Kia's, etc... as I will not let D-smooth drive one of those.

We can quickly eliminate a few, Caddie for one because those have always been and will always be only good for old white guys (primarily Jewish guys in Florida or Palm Springs) and young black guys. Honda Accord is just a tad too basic... though the new model looks sweet so maybe it's worth a run by the dealership!? Lexus Is250 is only for young Asians (guys or gals) so that's out since D-smooth is a 40-something white guy. The Benzo may be worth looking at but I have never been a big Benz fan... probably because of people like my grampa Sid reminding me that the Benz is German, we are Jewish, etc.... Plus, it's their entry level car and to me driving an entry level Benzo is not good. Their product line is so long that I feel their low end cars are really just add ons and not a car they care about. D-smooth already did the Saab thing so that's out and Volvo is out too because it's really a Saab or a Ford and you don't want that.

I have never been a BMW guy. Some nice cars but even my BMW lover, D-latz up in Portland now acknowledges they are expensive to keep on the road. Plus the local dealer tries to sell all of them for OVER window sticker. Maybe he hasn't heard our economy is down a little!? For me, Audi is same as BMW in terms of repairs plus the A4 may be a tad small.

We are thus left with the G35 v. the Acura TL. Two similar cars in my opinion. A few more ponys under the hood of the rear wheel drive G35 but the TL is no slouch. In fact, the Acura web page says it jumps from zero to 60 in 5.4 seconds. Funny, because back in the 80's we thought my Mustang GT was really fast and it took about 7 to get to 60... but it cruised at 125... oh wait, shouldn't talk about that in case Ponch and Jon are reading this. That appears to be the same as the Infiniti. Hmmmmmmmm....

I think we need to go test drive because it's hard to tell from the web. Infiniti is a little more sports car as the Acura is front wheel drive. Acura comes with a 17" wheel which is a bit small in these days of people slamming 20"s on their Kia's. The Infiniti is standard at 18" but I am sure you can bump it to 19" at the dealer as I know the two door has 19"s. Wheels are important but I like to stay with wheels from the dealer.

Which has more prestige? Not really sure. I like my Infiniti G35 but I also like my wife's Acura MDX. One noted difference, at the Infiniti dealer they give you Infiniti rental cars to drive when your car is in for service. At Acura you have to go to Enterprise, off-site, and then rent a whatever.

That's my report for today. If D-smooth wants to get into automatics then we got a whole bunch of other cars to consider: Lexus G's, Infiniti M's, et al....