Car Shopping Chronicles, Season 3, Part 6
In the last post in this series, I shared how I learned that not only could I get out of my Tesla lease early, but I could do it without paying any penalties or turn in fees. I ended by saying that S and I made two appointments for Halloween morning.
Neither of those would be at the Rivian dealership.
The Rivian R2 was still, by far, my first preference from driving, comfort, philosophical, and aesthetic perspectives. However, I could not justify the expense when it is a brand new vehicle that has yet to survive a winter season of real-world driving. I’ve watched numerous videos of R2 owners who have had to take theirs back to the dealer multiple times for repairs. Often these service visits involved dropping the vehicle off for a week or longer. One person even got an error saying they should not charge their R2 until the dealership replaced a part in the charging port.
These are probably quite isolated, and would have been corrected by the time my R2 arrived. However, with some chagrin, I decided that paying that much to be a Beta tester was not worth it. We scanned through the used options on the Rivian site, wondering if a low mileage R1S or R1T might come in cheaper and on a more established platform. You can get close to the price of a new R2, but it’s still a lot of money for a (used) vehicle that doesn’t drive as well as the R2.1
So no Rivian for me. For now.
Our first appointment on Halloween would be at the Honda dealership. While I had some reservations about the Passport TrailSport after test driving it a week earlier, as I drilled deeper into my research and better established what I was looking for in a vehicle, it re-emerged as a strong contender.
Depending how our visit to the Honda dealership went, we could then scurry down the block to the VW dealership and take another look at the Tiguan.
My second drive in the Honda was, again, fine. I honed in on that transmission lag I had complained about after my first test drive. I found it less problematic as I reprogrammed my mind to stop comparing it to an EV. Super comfortable, well appointed, just about all the tech you need. After that first drive I also complained about the second-row leg room. This time I found it to be perfectly fine. I think that first car I test drove had the Easy Entry setting switched on and when I got out, the driver’s seat had automatically moved back. I climbed in with no issues this time.
No real issues with the car. As a Honda it should last forever and is easy to service. A quick check with our insurance company showed despite being a new car replacing a three-year-old one, our annual premium would go down significantly, which would counter some of the cost of paying for gas again.2
Perhaps most importantly, S really liked it, too. After we did our little 3-mile loop we sat in the far end of the dealer parking lot for a minute to talk over our strategy.
“How about this?” she began. “We buy this, you drive it for a couple years, and if the Rivians come down in price and you think they are worth the cost, we trade in my Telluride and get an R2 then?”
I had never considered this angle! I was completely down!
We sat down with our sales guy and began talking price. The vehicle was already marked down nearly $5000 from the sticker price. He said they were also offering another $1000 off if we signed the papers today. Holy crap, we didn’t even realize that we showed up on the last day of the quarter and they were trying to push out as many cars as possible before the end of business!
We said, “Bring us the paperwork, fine sir!” An hour later we drove off with our 2027 Honda Passport TrailSport.
I ended up getting the highest level trim available. Not necessarily by choice. My first test drive was in the Elite, the next-to-highest trim. They had already sold all their Elites in the Ash Green color I preferred.
This second test drive was in the Elite Blackout trim, which has some blacked out (obviously) exterior features. I wouldn’t have picked those if I was speccing out a build on my own, but it was on the lot. We drove it home for more than $6000 under sticker so I’m fine with some added flair.
Later, as we were going to one of her sister’s for Halloween celebrations, I told S this was all her fault.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I reminded her that about a month earlier she had inquired about when I was going to start test driving cars. Until she asked that, I figured I would wait until February to kick things off. Her question got that itch going, which got the YouTube car review rabbit hole flowing, which ended up with me in a new car before October was over. Not my fault at all.
After we got the new car home, I cleaned up the Tesla, took a bunch of pictures on the app, and submitted them for review. Within a couple hours I got a preliminary invoice of zero dollars due to excess wear and tear, pending final inspection after turning it in. We dropped it off at the dealer a couple days later. That afternoon I got a final statement confirming that I had escaped without owing them any more money for tires or door dings or whatever.
I have a lot of problems with Tesla, but they make both buying and turning in a car dead easy.
So, Season Three of the Car Shopping Chronicles has come to an end, much sooner than expected. As is tradition, I will check back in after a few weeks to share my thoughts on the TrailSport as a daily driver.
