To buy or not to buy

Its been just over 2 months that my car has been paid off and now I dont seem to enjoy it as much as I would want to. The RSX has provided me immense driving satisfaction with its 5 speed manual but suddenly the 2.0L I4 155HP engine is too small for me, does not give me adequate acceleration and is no fun to drive. So here I am on the verge of being sucked back into a consumer loan, considering my choices trying to find which car would give me the best bang for my buck.

When I bought my car last year, I had no time to look around, test drive cars and gloat over my options. My '91 Mazda Protege died on me one fine Thursday evening in Michigan. The closest auto mall was in Troy and that was closed on weekends so I had only the day of Friday to buy a new car! I set out at 11 am after listening to a tirade from my PM on how he couldnt afford for me to take a day off given how tight the deadlines were and how he wanted me to compensate for this time by putting in some work on the weekend. Pucking SOB! Why the hell was I told that the project was in Pontiac and then made to travel 60 miles one way from Rochester Hills all the way into downtown Ann Arbor when I agreed to jump on to this?! My poor grad student car could not handle the onslaught and it broke down within a months time. It was absolutely stupid of me to spend $900 on repairs hoping that these would keep the car going for the next few months atleast. When I say stupid I mean *really* stupid considering that I had bought the car over a year and a half back for $850! It took all of 5 days for the car to break down once again and this time the only option left for me was to buy a new car after the local Midas gave me an estimate of $750 on the new repairs.

So with herd desi mentality I set out to buy a Hindu Accord. Certified Pre-Owned seemed a good bet since I was in no mood to spend any money on repairs on old cars and I did not have the gut to splurge on a new car. I was thinking maybe if I bought an Accord coupe it would set me atleast a little bit apart from your everyday sedan driving desi. To my luck, I did not find a single coupe within my meagre budget. Even if I was willing to spend a little further, apparently Honda Finance had some idiotic restrictions where they needed me to be a resident of the state atleast for the last year, provide complete documentation about my employment with paytsubs for the last 3 months and have a valid Michigan driver's license. Given the frequency at which I was hopping states that time, I had a Ohio driver's license, Illinois licence plates and auto insurance in Michigan. I did not have complete employment documentation since my visa was being transferred to the new employer and I did not have any paystubs from the new employer 'cos it had not been paytime yet. So the not-so-friendly guys at the Honda dealers refused to process my credit application and I left for the Toyota dealers next door.

No matter how much I hate the vanilla look on Toyota's I consoled myself saying atleast I would save some money on gas. I dont know what I was thinking when I was hoping to find a CPO Corolla or Camry. No one returns a Toyota! Those are for keeps! The only available CPO vehicle was a RAV 4 which I wasnt quite impressed with. Dejected, I walked into the Acura store across the street just for kicks to find what price range they were selling for. It was plain good fortune that they had this RSX available at just around the price I was willing to pay at that time. I took the car for a short spin. Happy with the deal I was getting (more happy that atleast I was getting something to drive around) I quickly signed up to buy the car. So glad I did. At 4 pm I was out with the new car and that has to be the most expensive thing I've bought within such less time. 14 months later, the car is mine and 2 more months later today I am looking to upgrade.

Upgrading from an Acura is a tough choice. Clearly, when I upgrade for performance and driving pleasure, it has to be something with a manual transmission. Auto trannys and huge powerful engines just dont gel well at all. The BMW 3 series is what comes to mind immediately given this scenario and the 3.0L I6 300HP looks like a clear winner. But the price tag hurts! For a similar price, if not less, another option is the Infiniti G35. 3.5L V6 306HP. Impressive. The Infiniti also comes with a ton of gizmos and gadgets (and its not quite as clunky as the Audi's). It has much more spacious and luxurious interiors. The Lexus IS 350 is a top notch performer but no available manual transmission. Ditto for the Lexus SC 430 (for $65k!! Daim!). But a bimmer is a bimmer is a bimmer and nothing compares.

Ofcourse given the price range I am looking at I could easily get a SUV. Heck the Infiiniti FX45's start at $37k. But I am not a fan of big cars. For zipping past quickly, the smaller the better. If my RSX came with an engine twice its current size and they shrunk the cars dimensions further I would still love it. Again, by desi standards once (whenever) I get married I will have to buy a SUV/minivan. Like someone rightly said, 'buy your toys before marriage' I am now eagerly hunting around for the best driving experience my money can buy. Lets see if/when this search culminates.