New Car

 As the title suggests, I got a new car. I was already planning on replacing my 2015 Chevy Sonic LTZ for 2 main reasons... #1 is that it has had a number of mechanical and electrical issues since I've owned it in the last 6 years, and I felt like there was another one coming due to rough idling (it only had 70k miles on it). #2 is that right now, the used market for cars is nuts, and Kelley Blue Book said my car was worth $10,200, when I had paid $12-something for it 6 years ago.

So the only real issue with a high rate of return on trade-ins is that many new vehciles right now have a mark up because dealerships are getting very few sent from the factory and therefore need to make up for the loss in revenue due to this. That was the case for the car I wanted to replace this with, which was a 2022 Honda Insight hybrid. 

Right now, gas prices are also nuts, and while you would think the tiny body and engine (the LTZ model had a turbo as well) of the Sonic had to have had some great gas milage, it just didn't. With a 12 gal tank, it averaged about 280-300 miles, and roughly 27mpg, with a HP of 138. The Insight on the other hand, is a mid-sized sedan with a hp of 151, a 10.6 gal tank, and gets about 500 miles to a tank; roughly 50-55 mpg. It's basically the best in its class and on par with the Prius. 

Thanks to youtube reviews, I knew basically everything about the car inside and out before even going to the dealership (obviously this isn't the end all-be all of information, but no dealerships had any cars on the lot for me to look at personally, so it's all I had). And compared to the Prius, Honda did them one better. The EX trim, which is their base model, had all the high tech saftey sensors that the base model Prius lacked.

• Safety features:
  
  • Collision Mitigation Braking System™ (CMBS™)8
  • Forward Collision Warning (FCW)9
  • Road Departure Mitigation System (RDM)4
  • Lane Departure Warning (LDW)10
• Driver-assistive features:
  
• Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) with Low-Speed Follow13
• Lane Keeping Assist System (LKAS)11
• Traffic Sign Recognition System (TSR)58

And let me tell you, the driver-assistive features are so bomb. I'm in love with them already. The ACC is amazing for highway traffic as the car basically drives itself. You set your speed to whatever, like 65, and if traffic slows in front of you then so does the car. Once traffic picks up, then your car will as well, without you having to do a thing. Lane Keep Assist is also great for the highway, as the car follows the lines of the road and basically keeps straight or curves with the road for you. The only issue with this that I've found so far (besides the fact that some reviews state it doesn't always work) is when there's a exit the car wants to follow that line and you have to correct for it. But overall, it's much less work to drive, especially in heavy traffic, then it would otherwise be. The traffic sign recognition is also pretty neat as there are times I'm driving around in unfamiliar territory and have no idea what the speed is.

It also has Android Auto (which I missed the boat on with my 2015 Sonic) that I've wanted forever. Going from the LTZ Sonic to the EX Insight, I lost out on a few nice-to-haves, like leather seats, heated seats, fog lights (trust me, they come in handy even without fog), and premium speakers. But the cool thing about Hondas is that they do their upgrades at the dealership, so I can always add the heated seats or the fog lamps later.

In my next post, I'll explain what the buying process was like for me (thanks to the shortages), which didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked.