As I explained in my last blog post, we bought a new Nissan Altima Hybrid a couple of days ago. My impressions of it so far:

"Interesting" route choices on the Navigation system: some of its recommendations have been spot-on, but others have just been in the "wth?" category. It was able to recommend the fastest (in my experience) route from Marlboro to Grafton (495 S to the Pike, btw), but downtown Worcester to Grafton was just bizarre. It decided it didn't like 290 or 146, and instead sent me on 122A, where I needed to wait at a school crossing for 4-5 minutes. It also couldn't find the Worcester Registry of Motor Vehicles, so I had to look up the address manually and then enter it in. I haven't started the XM-Traffic trial yet, so this performance may improve.

It's less gas-efficient than I thought it would be. I'm still getting pretty good mpg, but in order to get the top efficiency, it's actually a bit of work; very slow and steady acceleration and moderate speed are the only way to produce the best results.

The CD changer (MP3 compatible) doesn't seem to like discs with more than 660MB of data. I wasted two CD's figuring this out.. the first was pushing the limit at 725MB (overburn), but I thought the second at 690MB would work. Once I got a disc working, though, it sounded great.

The keyless entry is very cool - the only trouble is, where do you put your key-chain while you're driving?? I've been plopping them in the drink holder in the center console for now.

My trusty 1998 Honda Accord EX finally passed away three days ago. We got over 170K miles out of it, never had any non-driver-caused issues (no crashes either, knock-on-wood!) and it drove very well until the last day.

Sadly, though, it began having some starting issues about a week ago that were traced to humidity issues with the electrical system (arcing when it was wet, basically). That, along with some looming maintenance that we were going to have to do (tires, brakes, etc.), the fact that the timing belt and clutch have never been replaced, and other minor things (some dash lights out), lead both of us to the decision that it was time to replace it. In summary, I have no complaints at all about the Accord, and would buy another one (see below) in a heart-beat, but this one had truly given up the ghost.

Another factor in all of this is certainly the price of gas. While the Accord was never BAD at the pump, it wasn't all that good either. I think I got 20 mpg or so. I'm not a stickler for fuel efficiency: I drive reasonably fast, use the engine to decelerate, and down-shift as necessary (or desired) to pass. But at $3.60 or so right now, and no end of the increase in sight, I'm not going to thumb my nose or my wallet at more fuel-efficient alternatives.

So, as we always do, we hunkered down to do some research. Our requirements: