Wifey and I have different priorities for a car. It's the story of our lives really, so we have to work hard at compromise. For me, power and sexiness was key. I wanted a car that looked good and had plenty of pickup for those times I wanted to zoom around that fucking Prius that's in the wrong lane to be going the speed limit. Wifey is more concerned about fuel economy. She wants a hybrid ideally, but I'm kinda staunchly against the Prius so that cuts down our options. Have I mentioned I hate Prius drivers? Not for their ideology, but for the way they drive. They suck. I'd buy a Tesla in a heartbeat though, as would Wifey, but at $60k it's not happening any time soon.
We came up with a compromise list. About the only thing we could definitely agree on were that we wanted a manual transmission again (because they're fun to drive and damn sexy), and a moonroof. Essentially, we wanted what we currently have but in a newer car. The cars we settled on trying out were:
- Honda Accord EX, manual
- Honda Accord Hybrid
- Mazda 6
We struck out with every. single. one. We weren't asking for much: manual transmission, cloth seats (because Wifey is a vegetarian), and a moonroof. The exact same things that we have in our current Accord.
We started out with the Mazda because it's a sexy car, has awesome ratings and customer satisfaction, and it's just something different than the Honda. The Mazda comes in 3 trims: Sport, i Touring, and Grand Touring. The Sport lacked a moonroof. The i Touring also lacked a moonroof, and it was only available in leatherette, which Wifey wasn't thrilled about even though it wasn't real leather. The Grand Touring would have, admittedly, gotten us everything we wanted—but it only came with leather seats.
We moved on to the Honda. Safe, boring Honda. They've done a few things to the Honda since we got ours though, and the Accord is actually kinda sporty looking, and has a nice stick shift—a sporty, short one. It felt really good to drive. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the Hybrid was also a nice drive, despite the fact that it was a hybrid and automatic. Wifey was obviously very excited about the Hybrid too. The downsides to it? No moonroof, no manual transmission, and no trunk space. We were willing to overlook the transmission type, and even considered leaving the moonroof. The trunk space was the killer though. It's only about 12.7 cubic feet, which is simply not big enough. The back seats also don't fold down at all, so you only get that 12 feet—not a bit more. I'm a musician and have to haul gear around sometimes. It would be pretty tight to get my amp and guitar into a trunk that size. There's also the occasional Home Depot trip, trips to the Vineyard where we pack our lives up for a weekend, long road trips to Cleveland...you get the picture.
The Accord EX was the only car we looked at that offered all the features we wanted. The only downside was that it came in all of two colors: light grey and dark grey. We were fine with this though. If we could get everything else we were more than willing to have our color prospects limited. We went through our local dealer who located two cars. We thought we were finally at the end of our journey, but those two were already spoken for and the dealer couldn't find anyone else in the area who had that exact model with those exact specs.
We had struck out three times.
Now we're kind've circling the wagons again, trying to figure our our next steps. We're extending our search to some other areas that we travel to from time to time. The Hybrid is still out, but we're hoping we can find the EX manual somewhere. The Mazda is likely out because not only does it only come in leatherette, it has no moonroof.
Honestly, I don't get how fucked up these trim levels are. It's super frustrating.
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