Previous Vehicle Purchase Criteria
 

With the New York Auto Show Toyota/Scion FT86 badge shenanigan threads going on I was wondering the following:

What were the criteria for selecting the vehicle you currently drive?

What other vehicles were you looking at when selecting?

Why do I ask? People have different criteria when selecting a vehicle and while one thing makes sense to one person it may seem absurd to another. Obviously I'll go first.

I bought a 2005 Toyota Corolla XRS nearly 2 years ago:

My criteria for purchase was: "Slightly" used car, 2004 or newer, less than $15,000 sticker, less than 120,000km, dealer sold and inspected, preferably manual transmission, and preferably not American or South Korean (still skeptical of their cars made before 08).

I remained mostly unbiased to make, model, trim, door count, and most colours.

I looked at and considered some of the following: 05 Acura RSX, 04 Nissan Altima 3.5, 05 Mazda 3, 04 Honda Civic SIR (Canadian SI), 05 Honda Civic, 06 Honda Civic, 06 Honda Fit, 05-06 Toyota Matrix XR, 05-06 Toyota Corolla, 04-06 VW Jetta and Golf 2.5.

Only car I wanted was a mr2 and could only afford a naturally asperated model. That's it haha

My buddy had a 2005 Celica GT-S Tsunami edition. When I first saw the car I loved the way it looked.

So I kept an eye out and bought mine with the Action Package in 2007. Got a great deal since it had only one owner, was leased by Toyota, and 42,000 miles. Excellent condition.

My conditions though were the following:

My current car at the time was a 1995 Celica Convertible GT, Automatic.

Condition: I wanted a manual. I wanted the GT-S model, not the GT.

The rest was pretty biased since I knew the model of car I wanted.

I wanted Impreza coupe for longest time... so that's why I bought it. Other cars I was looking were, 3000GT, Celica GT-Four, & Porsche 964 (my neighbor were going to give me hellova deal)... but in the end, found my fav color Impreza coupe came along... only con side was salvage title, but I wasn't planning resell it or anything, so that wasn't a problem.