grep.ro

I don't know much about car brands and models, prices, etc. Sure, I know about cars, the technical stuff; I love driving (except in busy Bucharest traffic); but generally I don't take much interest in following the latest trends. Until recently. Because I'm itching to get a new car.

I'm quite attached to my automotive vehicle. It's been "in the family" for my entire lifetime, it's a pleasure to drive and useful to get around town. But it's really showing its age, especially in the bodywork. Gas consumption is pretty high, maintenance is getting expensive, and on cold days (whereby cold means somewhere below 5° centigrade in the morning) it's tricky to get the engine started. So maybe it's time to upgrade to something newer.

Now, the big problem is financing that something. Depending on availability of resources, I could go for a 2nd hand car; I hear there are good deals in Germany, and I know people who bought a car there and drove it back to Romania. But I would need help from a (more knowledgeable) person with the deal-hunting and car-checking; also, I would have to pay for the car up-front. Then there's the option of buying a new car. I heard nice things about the Mitsubishi Colt - very well thought-out interior, good standard options; the new Opel Corsa also looks really nice (albeit a bit more expensive for the same configurations). Trouble is, these things are priced somewhere around 12000 euros, so I may be looking a little too high. Anyway, I'd love to take a few cars out for a test drive; I'll probably have a look at the dealers.

And now for some finger-pointing. I'm pretty disappointed at the online model configurators of dealers; I expected car manufacturers to care more about user experience on their web sites. Sometimes the international sites are better than local ones; I wonder why they don't reuse stuff from them? Surely they can make a nice, packaged, reusable model configurator and give it to local branches, to hook into their own sites?