Bought a car!

Tl;Dr: easy to spend too much time on a big purchase

I have a bit more time on my hands these days, and the desire to do things a bit farther afoot than my bike can take me (reasonably). Like: going for a hike at snoqualmie, getting to a trailhead in the olympics. And maybe we will be taking more big car trips (national parks anybody?). Delaying a purchase seems reasonable under normal circumstances – but when the president says he’ll add 30% tariffs to future cars it adds urgency to buying.

We also have some weird constraints: narrow driveway = narrow car, I’d like to be able to drive to Portland without stopping. (And honestly – electric car range anxiety is a real thing).  I’d like to avoid burning gas on around town trips. We’d like a bit more cargo space. More clearance than the Leaf would be good.

And some unusual desires: I’d like memory seat positioning (squeezing into an M. sized cockpit is challenging), M. would like automatic trunk lift/close, and having folding mirrors might help with narrow driveway.

Consumer Reports says the Rav4 is the best rated small SUV, but… Already too expensive. So we’ve landed on a Hyundai  Santa Fe, with the fancy trim. 2023, over 20k miles.

Still figuring the whole thing out, but it’s pretty nice so far.