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December 07, 2005
Scion
I ordered a new car on Monday: the Scion XB. My wife and I had to compromise on what to buy since I wanted a new compact car with an automatic transmission and she wanted an SUV and was willing to settle for a slightly used one. The XB can be an automatic, is still fairly compact, gets good mileage, and was in our price range new at around $16,000. It also has an insane amount of interior room for a car its size. It felt like driving a small van when I took a test drive, even though it is shorter than our Camry. This results in the car looking like a rolling box, but I am ok with that because it is not a bad looking box.
The marketing of the website and related materials was very youth oriented with lots of information on first time financing and options for installing cool looking crap on your car that served no useful function like LED lighted cup holders, fancy metallic brake pedals, and custom paint jobs. We got several optional upgrades for the car, but that was more practical stuff like cruise control for me and an arm rest and cargo additions for my wife
The other thing I care most about is reliability and Scion was created by Toyota to attract younger buyers. After my parents experience with a Ford Explorer whose interior started falling apart after about five years of use, I have been reluctant to buy American. I liked my previous Toyota (a 78 Corona I inherited in high school with 120,000 miles on it) and even though it had been very poorly maintained when I got it, it lasted me for another three years and was running ok even then. The car we ordered and its engine were made in Japan and it is possibly on a ship on the Pacific Ocean somewhere right now if it has not arrived in America yet.
My only real frustration with the XB is that there was no option for a tape deck. CD and normal radio comes standard and you can upgrade to mp3s and satellite radio, but no books on tape for me when I am driving (since people under 30 like me must not listen to tapes). I will have to start switching to books on CD instead (or drive the Camry), which limits my choices of listening materials.
The XB should arrive in 3 to 6 weeks and I will have pictures then.
And here are links to articles about Scion's attempt to market to my generation. I ordered the car because it is basically a new Toyota in our price range, but Toyota seems to be a good job marketing the car to less practically minded twenty somethings.
Posted by Pete at December 7, 2005 09:47 AM
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