Vehicles in motion

[rmd]

Well, it's time. My beloved MINI is getting a bit long in the tooth and it seems like it's getting ready to go live on a farm in the country where it can frolic with the other parts cars. So I figured that I'd stay ahead of the game and start figuring out what to replace it with. I opted for a Honda Fit, and then the July 4th sale incentives hit, so I'm going to be picking up a new Fit next week.

They offered me kind of crap value for trade-in on the mini (to be fair, they think they'll just send it to auction), so I'll probably swing by one of the used car places in Somerville and see if they'll do better. If not, I'll see if the dealership will go for slightly less cash and throw in a bunch of accessories. I'm trying to figure out if it's worth the annoyance and work to do a private sale via CL or ebay or something. I suspect not.

Since the Fit is more spacious than the MINI, I figure if I get a set of roof racks for that, it'll cover 95% of what I do with the truck, so I can get rid of the truck as well.

Comments

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Why not another MINI?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

I really want something with 4 doors (well, 5 if you count the hatch as a door). MINI finally offers a 4 door model that's not the strangely-hulked-up Countryman model, but there's not a whole lot of cargo room there, still. The Fit has surprising amounts of cargo room, and I figure a Fit with a set of roof racks will handle at least 95% what I've used the truck for, so that means I can get rid of the truck as well over the summer. Also, repairs in the Honda ecosystem are a whole lot less pricey than repairs in the greater BMW ecosystem.

It's not as pretty, and it's not as sporty, but it is also notably cheaper - the Fit in trim I'm getting (EX-L) has a list price that's the same as the absolute base model of the 4 door hardtop MINI.

4 door mini

[diagonti.livejournal.com]

I actually bought one of the 4-door mini's with a roof rack. Its bigger than the 2-door, but not a lot. The Fit can definitely carry more. With that said, I mostly keep the rear seats down and at least for my use case (2 person household, road tripping, larping) its been plenty big enough. So much so I've not actually used the roof rack yet.

So yeah, the fit is less expensive to buy & own, and probably more practical. But the mini has its charm. :)

Re: 4 door mini

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Oh cool! Yeah, the Mini has its charms. I've been in the fit for a few days, now, and between it being new and it not having a suspension tuned to let me feel every pothole, it's a bit like driving a couch in comparison with the cooper S. :)

How've you been?