New or nearly-new car purchase

[Kevin Boykin]

My wife and I recently had to buy her a new vehicle. 
Criteria was primarily safety for the new baby, and my
wife was adamant about "getting something european"
and trading in her Acura RSX (at $25k limit also).  So
we looked hard at pre-owned A6's and A4's, and we were
very disappointed in their condition as preowned
vehicles.  
My wife wanted a mercedes, but their prices were
stupid and their pre-owned warranty is absolutely
pitiful (for that matter their NEW warranty is
pitiful!)  Not to mention a complete lack of
professional assistance.

Anyway, we wound up looking at Volvo.  She wanted the
new S40 but we ran into a time crunch and we couldn't
get one without a bunch of options that we didn't want
pushing the price way too high.  We wound up with a
slightly used (6k miles) 2004 S60 with the base
engine.  Very nice car actually, and the 170ish hp
engine has more pep than I thought it would.  It was
sold as new to us, since it was a demo, so comes with
the new warranty including free service.  The first
one is due at 7500.

My point in this rambling story is that you might want
to take a look at the S40, the new model (2004.5>) is
very nice, but Volvo dealerships are really trying to
ditch the new-old previous 2004 models.  They would
have sold us one with all the options, including the
sport package, in the very low 20's, that had MSRP in
the low 30's.  
They are nice cars for the money.  You can wheedle one
out of them for very very close to their cost, maybe
even below their cost with Mfg rebate/incentive.  And
the S40 wagon (V40?) looks pretty good IMO, especially
with a few mods.
Otherwise, you can order a new S40 (pretty sexy) with
the T5 engine (pretty zesty) and 6-speed with no other
options and come in right at your price.  The dealers
CAN and will modify one of their alloted/on-order T5
S40's for you if you're serious, otherwise they'll
order a bunch of options to push the car into the
30's.
At $25k the T5 S40 would be a good buy.
My driveway had '99 A4, '87 4kq, '04 S60, '83 Volvo
240.  It was kinda fun :)  '87 4kq has a new home as
of earlier this week :( :| :) but it's a good home of
a 4k enthusiast.


	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs  
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover