Would she consider a Subaru? They've been around forever and have a reliable product. I'd just hate to buy a imported car that could bail on the market in a few years. Remember the Renault Alliance? The Wrx is a really nice car. I'm not sure about the bug eye thing, but the car handles very well and is rather quick. Because the gearing is deep the engine does spin going down the highway though. Milage is in the lower 20's. The nicest thing is that there a couple of different body styles that she can pick from. Either that or she should just buy our Blazer. :D Rather than the new Blazer would she consider the older body style? They were a really nice truck on the inside-especially the LT version. With the new car market pushing the used cars down and a new body style out, they should be fairly affordable. Milage would be in the mid to upper teens.

Merry Christmas Mike,

We sell kia's were i work and while they are a entry level car they dont have many problems with them, they have a great warranty 10yrs and 100,000 miles they are what we call throw away cars once you by it use it to the end because they have no resale value, and they depreciate rapidly, the sorrento is their new model and we sell the heck out of them, the first few we got in had some problems, but so do most of the new lines when first introduced. good luck on your car hunt i'll see you at loto this year some time

later

SATURN VUE?

Mike
what about the Saturn Sport Ute ( Vue?)

she may get 0% financing. Linda and I looked at them

or hey!!!!!!!! how about Linda's 98 Blazer. leather, seater heaters, 59,000 miles. for you mike..........$10,500 out the door

then you can say "my girl's car is a truck!!" and it would pull your boat in the event the Dodge is down ...again.....

don't tell me in won't cause a birdy told me an s10 pickup used to pull ol' Waterfoul.;)

Mike,
I,m with Cord check out the Subaru. For Michigan weather it would be a great car. It would hold some resale value as well. Sure the Kia has a ten year warrenty but you know what, the company still has to be around to take advantage of that. Go check out the Subaru she might find out that she likes it. Besides AWD for the upcoming months is the way to go.

Just my .02
Russ

Mike,
why don't you pick one of the cars that you mentioned that are built in the US.
I don't think KIA's are.
I'm really surprised that you aren't preaching the American car thing with where you work. The next time there is a lay off or you have to take a paycut you can thank someone who bought foreign.:)
I do like the Subaru WRX but I just couldn't bring myself to buy foreign.

Recently went through the "let's buy a car" thing. Couldn't afford new, so looked at used. The most interesting thing I found was that there weren't many Subarus around (it was one of my choices), and the few available were still worth $4,000 with 195,000 miles on them.

Neighbor down the street just got an Outback and loves it.

Mike, let me know if the junk yard backs out of giving her what she wants for the Sunbird.....would make a good kids car....Fred

Subaru --My wife has one she love it ,Great in the snow and rain

Mike~

Three words for you RAV-RAV-RAV!!! Toyota RAV4! The new ones are the chit! A good friend of mine owns a fairly large Toyota dealer here in MA. My wife wanted to get rid of her 99 VW Jetta GLX (damn that little sucker was quick!), but at 45K miles it was falling apart. So, went to his dealership where I bought my 4-Runner Ltd., she got in it, drove it and would not give him the keys back... So, we took it home! It has all wheel / 4wd drive, leather, moonroof, cd... all that BS and MSRP was $23,xxx. You pay a bit more for the Toyotas, but you get what you pay for!! Quality, durability and resale. It has more room in it than it looks like it would and it gets 28mpg on the highway. :)