Introducing....the new car

[HotRodWagon]

Yes, if you haven't read already, I bought a Kia Optima EX-V6. It's a new body style and is a pretty nice car. Now first off, yeah, I bought a Kia. Well, this is not my first Korean car I've owned. In 96 I bought a new Accent GS. That car was worth every penny, and never gave me any trouble while I ragged the mess out of it for ovewr 100K miles. To this day, I would have kept the car as a project, but it was ant atx of course...so I sold it.

Anywho, I researched my arse off before buying anything. I mean I looked at everything. For the price range I was looking for, the Optima packed all the options and saftey, especially the stability control, at the best price for a mid size sedan. I compared the car up to 4cyl versions of the competition, as the Otima's 2.7L barely outperforms the 4cyl's. On paper, nothing matched in the bang for the buck department in a family/sedan vehicle.

Well, not to worry about the ZTW...it's still in the stable. We traded the Civic..hehe.

The Optima is black on black perferated leather interior. It stickered at 23900 and left the dealer for 19995. The car has all the options, including climate control and an Infinty sound system. But for what it is worth, all that aside, I wanted stability control. After driving the ZTW w/advancetrac for the past 5 years, I could not do without stability control.

I looked at the Malibu, which has stabilty control, but the car had no personality. I didn't even look at a Fusion b/c Ford doesn't even offer it. And there was no sense in paying the brand charge for a camry or accord...

The bottom line is I got what I wanted a safe reliable car, loaded, for under $20K. The V-6 was a bonus. I probably would have bought the 4cyl model, but none in the region had the stability package.

I'll get a few pics up shortley. The car has the "indistiguisable japanese brand" sedan styling. Nothing exciting to look at,
but a set of nice wheels will fix it up.