Goodbye Accord, Hello Insight

I bought this Honda Accord new in 1994, and it's been a great ride ever since. It has a few small dents and scratches, but held up well for 144,000 miles. After about 10 years and 100,000 miles, though, I started talking about getting a new car, "as soon as this one has some kind of major and expensive problem." It never did, but as happens, gradually all the little problems reached a threshhold, and when the radio died a few months ago, that was the clincher. It was time for it to go.

Today I traded it in for a new 2010 Honda Insight, not that I got much for the trade, but every little bit helps. I've driven it less than two hours, but I already love it. We bought Ellen a Civic Hybrid in 2006, so now we both have Hybrids, and will drive as green as we can with two cars. I'm familiar with the driving style needed to get the best mileage in Honda's hybrids from Ellen's car, and in my two hours of driving I've already gotten the overall mpg from 36 to 44. And not only is it great to have a radio again, I can now play CDs! Plus, there's an iPod dock, so I'll probably finally get one of those, too.

I think I did quite well on the price, thanks to internet price quotes. After test driving this car at our local dealer, and getting a quote from them, I went online and got price quotes from the next two nearest dealers. Both were $1500 lower. Took that to the sales manager at our dealer, and he came very close to matching it. Competition can be a wonderful thing!