A little more space and A LOT more horses.

This past week, Kristin and I had the joyous task of finalizing our car purchase. After many (and I mean many) weeks of deliberation, we were finally able to put down our money!

If you know me, you know that I tend to do things quite logically, and systemically. In an effort to keep buyer's remorse at bay, I did what any logical left-side-of-the-brain type guy would do: I trusted the numbers.

Kristin and I developed criteria for what would make a car purchase-worthy; things like cost, colour, safety ratings (freely available from NHTSA), and whether or not it has a roof rack. These perfromance characteristics were given a weight factor depending on how important they were to us. For example, whether or not a car had All Wheel Drive could get either 0 or 1 point, but the colour and look of the car could get anywhere from 0 to 3 points.

After looking tirelessly on sites like Autotrader and Usedottawa, a fairly large database was amassed, consisting of RAV4's, CR-V's, and less-so, Tucsons. We visited dealerships, private sellers and were told countless times about the CR-V's picnic table in the back cargo area! After many close calls and a botched sell by The 4x4 Store, the numbers told us to go with a 2005 CR-V from Bridgeport Motors. Nice guys.

Our little guy's transportation means will now be provided not by our '98 EL (named Ellie), but by our new CR-V (named Rachel). As far as the space and horsepower increase, as by this post's title, Rachel offers over 20 extra cubic feet as compared to Ellie, and 33 extra horses. With the infamously high-revving Honda engines, though, and my miserly acceleration habits, who knows if I'll ever actually see those numbers!

What about you? What do you most care about when buying a car? Safety? Look? Performance?