Yesterday we went to test drive some cars.

In the morning I drove a Honda Civic Hybrid. This one was just off the delivery truck (still had the glue on the roof from the truck) and hadn't been put through whatever it was supposed to be put through when it arrives. It had next to no gas. It also had next to no acceleration. The sales person said that was because it hadn't been run through whatever stuff they needed to run it through. All I could do was wonder why they'd send us out on a test drive in a car that was not up to snuff? It seemed like a really bad idea, don't you want to impress the potential customer, not disgust? Whoever made that call, really bad call.

We went to Colonial Honda the closest one to our house. They have no lot, to speak of and it took way too long to get the car that I wanted to test drive out. There was much juggling of cars and also cars left parked in really bad places. It was just silly.

Overall, the Honda experience was NOT what you would hope or expect. Oh well.

In the afternoon we headed down to the local Toyota dealer to test drive a Prius and a Camry Hybrid. All along I'd sort of assumed that I would end up with the Prius. It gets the best mileage by far and is eligible for the CA carpool sticker (which CA is not currently issuing).

We drove the Camry first. It was a nice car to drive. I was comfortable in it and was easily far enough away from the airbag to be safe. Phil said that the back was pretty comfortable as well even with LB's car seat in the middle. At the very end of the test drive we needed to make a U-turn to get back to the dealer. I commented that this was where we'd see what kind of turning radius it had. Well, it had a pretty small one, we were both impressed.

Then we drove the Prius. It wasn't bad to drive, but just didn't compare with the Camry. It felt much cheaper and not nearly as nice. I was very disappointed. I was really hoping to like the Prius best, but it was not to be. If I hadn't driven the Camry, I might have liked it just fine, I don't know.

The Prius has a few advantages over the Camry. First, it has more "trunk" space. It's a hatchback, so doesn't really have a trunk, per se, but it has more cargo space. Second, I like the latch attachment better in the Prius, it goes down and attaches to the back of the seat but in the Camry, it attaches right behind the seat on the flat area (what is that called? the rear dashboard?). Third, mileage, in actual road tests, the Prius far outperforms the other cars. Fourth, it is somewhat less expensive (but the Camry base model also includes some features that are extras on the Prius).

I'd like to get some sort of decision made soonish especially since I might end up needing/wanting to order one so I can get the amenities on it that I want and not the extra ones that I don't want-I seem to have a habit of doing that. :)

But I'm still disappointed that I didn't like the Prius more, the test drive was mostly to confirm what I already though, that I wanted a Prius. Sadly, it didn't work out that way. Oh well.