I bought a new car today.

This morning I drove into Yakima (about 85 miles away) and test drove a Hyundai Elantra. And I liked it. It’s not a huge car. Definitely smaller than the Dodge Intrepid I used to drive. Though honestly, the Intrepid was almost too big. It was certainly a challenge getting around and parking it in San Francisco when I drove it down there a couple years ago. I don’t see having that problem with the Elantra. But it’s still big enough where I don’t feel completely uncomfortable driving it.

And it gets decent gas mileage, with 34 mpg (14.5 kpl) highway driving.

Honestly, I think it was the easiest sale the sales rep has had for a while. He didn’t have to talk me into it. I’d already done my homework. Consumer Reports has been my haunting ground for the past few days, and I knew the Elantra has an excellent track record. Maybe not as good as its competitors like the Toyota Corolla (warning: really bad background music. I mean… really bad) or the Honda Civic, but it handily beat them price wise.

So I’m pretty happy about the whole situation all told.

I don’t have the car yet. I was pretty specific in what I wanted, so they have to ship one up from a dealership in Oregon. For some reason, manual drive hatchbacks just aren’t that popular. Though I did give on the colour. I wanted black originally, but settled for red. Though honestly, it’s a rather pretty shade of red.

It will be in Yakima on Saturday.

I’m pretty excited. It’ll be nice to have my own wheels again. And moving into a new car eases my mind incredibly. 5 years full bumper to bumper warranty with roadside assistance. And 10 year coverage on the powertrain. It’s almost Adam proof. I sometimes wonder what I’m doing in a family of gear heads, but I figure this is something I shouldn’t be able to mess up.

So one bit of stress is mostly taken care of at this point.

Now I just need to get my taxes done.

*shudders*