Car Shopping

Somewhere in the back of my head, I got this crazy idea that I wanted to buy a new car.

Keep in mind that I’ve owned my condo for about three months. And I just put a nice chunk of money into putting a tile backsplash in my kitchen. (And it looks awesome!)

My current car is a 2007 Honda Civic, and she’s been really good to me. At three years old and just under 55,000 miles, there is a lot of life left in that car. That means a new car is a want and not a need. I know that.

Today, I walked into Colonial Volkswagen of Medford with the intention of test driving a new Golf TDI. If I’m buying a new car, I have two absolute “must have” items. First, leather (or faux leather) seats are essential. I have two Pugs who shed like crazy. Leather is much easier to clean. Second, I spend about an hour in my car each day, so satellite radio is absolutely necessary. These two items aren’t available in the Golf. Sure, I can get both items as after-marked installation, but I’d rather have them as factory or dealer-installed options. I also like that the Golf is manufactured and assembled in Germany. We Germans make good stuff.

I like the TDI because their turbo diesel gets really great mileage. This is not the diesel engine of 20 years ago. That’s for sure. Because the Golf doesn’t have exactly what I want, we took a Jetta TDI for a test drive. I think I’m in love. It has everything I want, including the bluetooth connectivity for my iPhone. This one even came with an iPod connector.

My challenge now is whether I should buy one now or wait for the 2011 models to come out. The 2011 Jetta is a whole new platform. The 2010 models have been dubbed (pardon the pun) Jettarollas because the back end looks like a Toyota Corolla. At the same time, as soon as the 2011 models come out, the 2010s will seriously drop in price.

For now, I’m going to sit tight. For now.