New Car: “Stay in your lane!” Me and Rebekah: “We don’t think so!!”

Well that situation resolved itself fairly quickly! Rebekah and I drove the new car home – well, new to us – Thursday evening. We had invested a lot of time into research over the past couple of weeks and pretty much narrowed our selection down to three or four models.

The other decision was to go for a low-mileage used car – preferably from a manufacturer’s “Certified Pre-owned” (CPO) program.

We like Toyota a lot, so moving up to the Highlander was one idea. Then we considered Hyundai and Honda and Mazda. But we kept coming back to Subaru. Naomi owns a Forester, Andrew used to and it came through as the number one recommendation in response to my “looking for ideas” post.

We finally ended up at Capital Subaru in Greenville and settled on a CPO 2024 Outback Limited, which is longer that the Forester, a little lower and heavier, and a smoother ride. The vehicle presents as a cross between a station wagon and an SUV.

Wednesday I even test drove a very low mileage Cadillac XT5 over in Rocky Mount. The vehicle handled beautifully but came up short in every other category compared to the Outback. Plus, and this is hard to explain, the Subaru simply fits our personalities and a Cadillac does not.

So it was “goodbye” to my VW Golf, which I have been driving since Andrew shipped the car to me from Italy in August of 2015 (read “Live Like You Mean it in a Golf TDi“). Golf has been a wonderful ride over the years and I am going to miss how much fun the car was to drive.

Kudos to Capital Subaru:

We are excited about the new Subaru, but it’s going to take a lot of getting used to because so much has transpired in technology since the 2012 model year cars. There is so much happening on the huge touchscreen that we don’t even know where to begin.

The other huge change since 2012 is the pricing. Good grief cars are expensive!

Anyway, kudos to Capital Subaru of Greenville – and especially our sales rep, David Stewart – for making the process as pain-free as possible. The atmosphere at the shop is pleasant, cooperative and easy-going with no pressure tactics. We were treated with respect and the business end of the operation is clearly built on integrity.

So Rebekah and I now have the roomier, more comfortable, quieter, smoother vehicle we had been talking about. Now all of a sudden we both feel this curious pull to aim west and just start driving!

And as for those annoying nanny systems designed to keep tugging me back into my lane when I stray? All I can say is that neither Rebekah nor I got to where we are in our lives today by heeding such insistent directives to “stay in your lane”!!

Happy motoring, friends – and continue to watch this space. Peace – DEREK