Pushy...pushy...pushy

Last weekend the hubby had the entire weekend off from work. It's rare and I love it. Upon our exit from the bedroom on Saturday I asked him what he wanted to do that day and he said he was content with lounging around. Well I had other plans in mind, as usual, and asked him if he wanted to go see a movie instead. We planned on getting lunch and seeing the 4:30 showing of The Family......a movie I wasn't entirely too interested to see. I just hate spending $12+ for a ticket each, plus snacks (hubs must get snacks) to see a so so movie. It really bothers me. We got our lunch and because we had an hour and half or so before the movie, went window shopping for rugs and possibly a new television. Upon leaving the store, I made a comment along the lines of, "one of these days we should test drive some cars." We have been considering the prospect of a new car for a couple of years, but like the idea of not having a car payment. Once I uttered those words, he responded with "We can do that today!" And so began our adventure into car sales.

I had no idea what to look at. I know what I like, but rarely get a make and model when I see it driving down the road. My requirements were: affordability, reliability, good on gas, and 4 doors. (hello were trying to start a family) The hubs had seen the Hyundai Sonata at a car show and wanted to try it out, so we went there first. I was surprised at all the features and storage the car had, and it was relatively decent priced for a fully loaded sedan. We drove it around and for a 4-cylinder it had a lot of get up and go. It was a really nice option, but something about a sedan just didn't seem right for a family. Once we got all the information we needed we made our way over to Honda. We walked the lot a couple of times, but no-one came over to assist us, and really I don't see myself driving a Honda....they aren't very spacious comparably to other vehicles. After Honda, we decided to make one last stop. We went to Ford to look and see if they had anything comparable in a sedan. They did, but affordability-wise we would have had to purchase a used vehicle, and that's not something we had considered. I had mentioned to the hubs before that I like the Escape and the salesman took us over to the base model. The new body style and features were very nice, and I like the fact that it was a mid-size SUV. Something that sounded a little more up the alleyway for kids. It was spacious, but not overbearing, it got decent gas mileage for an SUV, and it was comparable in price to the Sonata. I was ecstatic that the prospect of buying an SUV was in our reach (well lease with option to buy.) We are still interested in looking around for other options, but getting our feet wet and knowing our options is very exciting

Here's my problem.....car salesman are just plain PUSHY! They ruin the experience. We told each salesman we spoke with that we were not interested in buying at the moment, just weighing our options. And since then we have had emails, phone calls, and just plain annoyances about getting cars appraised. UGH! If they continue to push like this, they will lose the sale to Cars Direct. Anyways, I was wondering if any of my blog friends had any good recommendations for cars. Preferably with the above specifications. Let me know what's good and whats bad! We need more things to go look at!