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I literally just put in an order for my new car on Saturday.

I’ve already ordered things for it.

Just a couple things though. Most importantly, snow tires, from the TireRack. The 2011 WRX comes with summer tires only when new, so by the time it gets here, I’ll need snow tires ASAP. I ordered a set of Blizzak WS60s (235/45/17) for $121 each on closeout. The new models for 2010 are coming in now (WS70) so I imagine they’re clearing out the older ones. The new WS70s run about $156 or so for my size. So it’s a considerable savings. I just wanted to order them before they were out of the closeouts… because the Blizzaks are top notch snow tires – but I don’t need the absolute newest version to get a good tire.

I also ordered a set of mud flaps from Rally Armor. They technically didn’t have anything available for the 2011 WRX as of yesterday, but it is the exact same body style (in 5dr trim) as the 2010 STI, so I ordered those. Specifically I ordered the UR flaps with blue Rally Armor lettering to match the car. I see that they have them available for the 2011 WRX now!

Oh… and I was at a car show yesterday that had a very new WR Blue, 5 door, STI in the show… It was basically the same exact style of car I will be getting. Same color and same body – and similar engine. It looked sexy. I can’t wait for mine!

After having enough of one certain dealership, I finally decided to take things a step further. Jen and I drove to Rochester today (Victor, actually) to visit a different dealer.

This one had all of the right answers.

I was finally able to place an order for a 2011 Subaru WRX. I ordered a Premium model, 5 door, in WR Blue. Ordered it with the roof rack base and short throw shifter. Actual price was even $300 below invoice (before destination).

Of course I don’t have an actual ETA for my new wheels yet, but the order is in, so to speak. Now the waiting begins… Again.

Consider this scenario…

Someone wants to spend $28k at your car dealership and has money available.

Do you…

• a) Try to help out, but put forth no actual effort?
• b) Do everything possible to accommodate and inform the buyer of options?
• c) Just blow the buyer off. You didn’t need that sale anyway.

Let’s just say that if you pick A or C, I’m done doing business with you.

Yes this related to my new car shopping and a certain Ithaca dealership. As of this writing, I think I’m at the final point of my patience. Here’s the latest problem…

It has been nearly THREE WEEKS since I’ve heard a single word from my salesman. That’s three weeks that I’ve been waiting, with money in-hand to get a new car. The reason? “We don’t have the accessory pricing yet.”

Yes, that is exactly what I was last told as to why I could not yet order my car. I figured I’d try to be patient about it. I did start inquiring at other dealerships (which, if you followed my latest postings, you’d know that I have very limited success in that area as well). Nothing yet has panned out.

Of course I’m not just sitting around waiting for the salesman to call me back… this past Tuesday I left a voicemail for him since he was out for the day – totally expecting a call back the next day (why wouldn’t he?). Well here it is on Friday and I STILL have not heard anything from him. Tried to call again and the secretary there said he may be with a customer and offered to put me into his voicemail again. So I left yet another voicemail. Though knowing that he was in the office today, I’m essentially making this evening the cutoff. If I don’t hear back, it’s game over.

And now, thanks to a friend that is also interested in a similar car, we both have sort of compared notes and there may be light at the end of the tunnel. I hope. So if I don’t hear anything from the original dealer by later tonight, I’ll be taking a drive tomorrow to hopefully put in an order and put down a deposit.

It’s time to get this ball rolling. I’m tired of waiting.

If you’ve read anything here recently, you’ll know I’m still in the process of tearing my car apart to get ready to trade. At least the interior and some other bits.

Two of the things I’ve removed are technically suspension pieces – front and rear strut bars. The rear one actually goes inside the car and is visible in the trunk. The front one goes in the engine bay and connects the two strut towers there.

It’s long been discussed that these two pieces do next to nothing to increase performance on the tC. Mostly because the areas they’re connecting are already supported quite well. I’m wondering though… perhaps at the limit (while autox-ing, for example), they may do more than first thought?

Here’s what I’m thinking…

There’s another guy I autox with fairly regularly… he has a decently prepped Mazda Protoge 5. Can’t say what he’s done exactly, but he and I are typically neck and neck on most courses. The only exception when I got beat by any extended margin was on a rainy course. Other than that one even, we trade top times on a regular basis. Usually only a tenth or two off of each other’s time.

Yesterday – after having removed both of those strut bars, he handily beat me by just over 1 second. Doesn’t sound like much time – but in autox, that’s like an hour in a day. My car felt OK overall I think. Didn’t seem as stiff as it usually was, but that’s incredibly hard for me to judge without being and expert driver or anything.

So it is possible… just possible, that the front and rear strut bars on a tC do more than initially thought.

But… would an every day street driver ever come close to noticing a difference? No. Don’t think so.

And then again, maybe I’m just trying to find a reason that I got beat so bad this time…

I posted a bit a while back about starting to take apart my car and remove some aftermarket bits and replace with OEM (where needed)… I took a giant step in that direction last night. I’m not well past  the mid-point of my teardown. So much so that I probably have only 4 or 5 things left to do. And the hardest part will just be removing the wiring from my amp.

Last night, since the dealer didn’t have the pricing available yet for me to put in my order, I decided to remove my seats. And the harnesses. And the harness bar. And while I was in there, my rear strut bar.

What a job… overall, including a quick run to Home Depot a couple miles away, and a short break for some Applebees chicken fingers, it took about 2.5 hours to put everything back together with OEM parts.

It feels weird.  I’m back to OEM seats and seatbelts. What a change. Though driving home from Jen’s parents place last night in my “new” seats, it really kind of set in that this car is going bye-bye. I may be a touch sad about it… being my first brand new car… and one that I’ve certainly done the most work to, it holds a little place in my heart.

That’s not to say it won’t be kind of nice to see it go – in favor of something awesomer… but hey, a guy can have attachments too.

The next step though is to try to sell all of the crap I just took off. That money will then hopefully go towards the down payment of my new car. Whenever that will actually be.

I still can’t really say that I’ve made a decision on a new car. I’ve got a few thoughts about it, but just haven’t really finalized them into an actual answer.

I suppose this is a good thing. I mean, I’m not rushing into a 20-some thousand dollar purchase… which seems like a good idea to not do. The one real variable so far though, is my current car. What to get on trade?

I’m trying to return it to as much of a stock car as I can… and it should be decent when I do finally hand it over. But what can I really expect to get for it? Here’s what some of the sites are telling me for trade in value:

• Edmunds TMV: $5410
  • “average” condition – may be a bit conservative on this
• Kelley Blue Book: $6025
  • “fair” condition – “good” condition is $7050
• NADA: $6325
  • “average” trade in

So I don’t know if the Edmunds price is just really conservative or the others are inflated. It’s really hard to tell. I’d like to believe I’ll get about $5000 for it. Anything less and I’d be a bit disappointed I think… anything more is just less I’ll have to pay every month.

I’m also trying to get a bit of cash together to put down with it. Obviously buying anything like this, the more you can put down with it and in turn, the less you can finance, the better off you’re going to be. You’ll get not only a lower monthly payment, but you’ll also end up paying a lot less in interest to the loan – no matter what your rate is.

That’s another thing that’s on the table at the moment. Financing. My credit is “ok” … but it’s far from great. I like to believe it’s good enough to get a new car, but it’s hard to tell what other banks are going to think. Though a word of advice (and again, stressing this), the more cash you can put down and NOT finance, the better the bank will look at it as well. If you’re putting down 1/3 of the value in cash, that’s less the bank has to cover and more equity that is instantly in the vehicle if it were ever to be repossessed. Meaning, if they ever had to take it away, they’d be more likely to get more of their money back from it.

Anyway… I decided to try to get preapproved through my bank (Corning Credit Union). The last time I asked them for money, I tried to get a personal loan to consolidate some credit cards – but I didn’t have enough equity in anything really to get them to do it. Oh well… hoped this time would be different. I talked to one of their loan officers after filling out the application online. Apparently the underwriters questioned one of my closed accounts (the collections one). I informed him it was just a collections account that I had finally paid off. He recognized that I had been at a low point in 2006 and everything was going a lot better since then. I hoped that part helped.

When he finally called me back he had good news and sort of OK news. The sort of OK news was that I could get the money… but he didn’t really seem to happy about it or sure of it. Like they were hesitant. I could have the money for 66 months at just over 8%. Frankly, for my credit score, I didn’t think that was too bad… However… if I were to get a cosigner (and again, it sounded like they really wanted me to go this route) I could get it down around 3.5%. That’s a HUGE savings. To put it in perspective, the difference on a $21k loan (plus tax, title, etc) at 60 months would be about $3000 in interest in almost $50 per month. Yikes!

Guess I need to look into that cosigner thing…

Though it is very likely that I’ll still look at the dealer financing options too. Who knows… maybe I can get 5% or so through them and not have to bother with the cosign?

Oh, did I forget to mention that I also test drove a 2010 WRX the other day?

After my first batch of test drives, there were an elusive couple of cars that were left to be driven. As of this past Saturday, that list has decreased by one more… and it was a dousey.

I went back up to Maguire on Saturday (while Jen was at some baby shower) to see what else I could scratch off my list. No WRX sadly, but they did have a manual Genesis Coupe (2.0t) in the showroom.

I should start off by saying that I had called on Friday to confirm they had one. The guy I spoke with (Mike) confirmed they did have one, but it was in the showroom and that he would get it out for me so it was ready to drive Saturday when I said I’d be up. Sadly, he failed in this simple task, and poor Justin had to painfully move a couple Sonatas just to get the Genesis out of there for me to drive.

Sure I could have driven the auto Coupe, but that’s just boring.

Once it was out, we went for a spin. I was actually kind of worried that I’d look like a douche and stall it or not be used to the clutch or transmission yet – but thankfully it was a very short learning curve. One thing that became apparent right away though was head room. I had enough to get in and be comfortable, but I was thinking ahead a bit more… like, me with a helmet on. It would be close.

Anyway, we took the usual Maguire route through Ithaca, up the hill, to some back road, and then circled back around to town. Let me just say that for only 210hp, this thing felt like it had a bit of kick to it. Not crazy power or anything, but you put your foot down and you start to hear that turbo spool and your back is in the seat. I’m not used to that. I didn’t even get on it THAT hard… but there was much potential there.

Now comparing to the GTI, this thing felt like it had at least 50 more horses… which is odd since the GTI is about even on power. Problem is that I drove the DSG version of the GTI and it felt a bit lacking. I’m still waiting to test a 6spd version, so we’ll see how that goes later.

Even the interior of the Genesis was quite surprising. I suppose that’s the point lately with Hyundai though… they just need to get people into the showrooms and give them a chance. They’re all quite good cars. Things felt fairly easy to handle – with the exception of the door/window controls. They felt awkward where they were. Everything else seemed OK though. Frankly, the features and gizmos play a minimal role at this point though. I want fun. I want entertaining. I need a good drive.

I really think the Genesis has it. At the moment I’m hoping to be able to take it on a longer drive next weekend with Jen. Justin said I could probably take it for a couple hours to really get a feel for it – which would be nice. Cause then I could play with all of the fidly bits inside.

Interestingly enough, it may not be necessary. The extended test drive I mean… tomorrow I’m hoping to drive down to Williamsport and test a new WRX. It looks like a dealer down there has a couple on the lot. I’d like to give one a go…

It looks like any car I choose to get will now have to be a 2011 model year.

With the GTI I’ve already driven, Chad pointed me to a VWVortex thread outlining the changes for the 2011 MY… including 18″ Detroit wheels standard. If you don’t know what these are, they’re THE GTI wheel. You’d know them if you saw them – even if you didn’t know the name.

Also a new head unit with better bluetooth integration. And the addition of “packages” now, instead of options. So instead of picking out a 2door with the options I want, I now pick the 2door with Sunroof and Navigation package (which you MUST buy to get bi-xenon HIDs). Kind of lame, but it’s basically stuff I’d get anyway.

Oh, and the price for all of this? If I priced it on a 2010 model, it would be somewhere just under $28k. But on a 2011, as a package, it is a bit under $27k. Good enough for me!

Even the WRX has some changes coming for 2011. This one was something I already knew I was waiting for the 2011MY – mostly for the redesigned body. They’re taking the squared and flared fenders from the STI and putting them on a the WRX for a bit more character. I’d rather have that. Also you now get wider tires and a wider rear track for (hopefully) a bit better performance. No word on pricing for the 2011 though.

After all of this comes word of a slight 2011 refresh from Hyundai to the Genesis Coupe. This includes some (apparently very needed) interior refinements. This alone is enough to get me to wait for the new model – even without having driven the current model yet.

I’m hoping to get up to Maguire soon and try a WRX and Genesis Coupe… then from there I can hopefully figure out wth I want to do…

With all of this talk of car shopping and driving, there are some things I have to take into consideration regarding my car… and if I were to trade it in.

First is to take out anything I can remove… my Pioneer AVIC unit (which may make its way to Jen’s car down the road), subwoofer, amp, scanguage, etc. That’s the easy stuff. There’s a bit more that I’d like to take care of before my car is really ready to go away.

The biggest issue by far is going to be seats. The seats and harness bar are going to be trouble. Well, actually getting them out will be cake. Getting my OEM seats back in and working properly will be another thing all together. That might happen as early as the end of July. Not sure yet.

Keep in mind that I still don’t know when I’ll be getting rid of my car. Sure, I’ve been shopping but I still don’t know when anything will happen. Regardless, I’m making progress towards a “nearly” stock tC.

Today I removed my front strut bar and am now shopping around for the OEM engine cover to cover up my safety orange valve cover and tone things down a bit. I’m not going to bother swapping the valve cover – because frankly, the engine cover is way easier and cheaper. Then there’s also the rear strut bar to remove – but that will be a while. Probably the same time I do the seats.

Pretty much everything else will stay the same (unless I can find a cheap OEM intake) when I trade it in. I’m not going to touch the suspension on the underside. The strut bars are simple enough to take off in a short amount of time and do not need any OEM part to replace them. Everything else requires sourcing OEM parts and the time/effort to swap them back. Not worth it.

Figured today that it was time I actually drove some of these cars I’ve been pining over. I had my list… and figured it was as good a time as any to take some for a drive – even if I wasn’t buying today. I needed to narrow my list down and see what I did and did not like.

Jen and I went up to Maguire in Ithaca after work today and I was able to get a few drives out of the way. For those that don’t know, Maguire is probably one of the largest dealers in the area. They have 5 brands just at the location that I went to – and another few down the road. This particular dealer is Toyota, Scion, VW, Audi, Kia, and Volvo. All under one (currently expanding) roof. Subaru and Hyundai are down the road.

Today I got to take a drive in 2 (sort of 3) of the cars on my list. They had each a 2010 VW GTI and 2010 Volvo C30. Sadly both were automatic – but at the very least the drive would offer a chance to see how they really felt… or how comfortable they were. And I don’t even mean physical comfort in sitting in them. I mean everything… perception, touch, sound… how does it really feel getting in and out of one? I was also able to test drive a VW Golf TDI. The salesman thought it might be a good one to try just b/c of the torque of the diesel and it was also a 6spd. Worth a shot… I figured. Keep on reading to see my initial thoughts and reactions to each…

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