What we did with our holiday weekend.

We bought a car today.

After testing a Honda Accord, a Toyota Camry XLE, and a Camry LE, we wound up with a 2005 Camry LE with a V-6 engine and a moonroof and about 30,000 miles on it. Compared to the Corolla we've been driving, it's got great handling, a much smoother ride, and far better power and acceleration, and it's much roomier. And yet it's still a Toyota, which means good gas mileage even though it's larger.

It's a Toyota Certified Used Vehicle, which means it passed an extensive inspection and has a bumper-to-bumper three-month 3000-mile warranty and a 100,000-mile powertrain warranty. So that's good.

I think we got a very nice deal on it. We paid about $3200 less than Edmunds.com reckons is the fair market value of the car with all its add-ons and adjustments and the Certified status. We didn't get much for our trade-in, a 2000 Corolla - but frankly, the Corolla needs a lot of work. That's why we wanted a new car in the first place.

Shopping for it was kind of entertaining. ( Read more... )