I liked being an Acura owner. But there were two things that, after almost 3 years of owning our TL, drove us both absolutely nuts. It was a 2007 TL with relatively low miles and drove very nicely. But all the driver-oriented amenities and technological appointments could not take away from that fact that every 180 miles (sometimes more, sometimes less), we were pulling in to the nearest gas station to fill it up with some more premium fuel.
Despite romanticized sport sedan notions to the contrary, a hybrid vehicle was a clear answer for us. From the congestion of downtown Chicago to the hills of Atlanta, 12-16 miles per gallon average is not acceptable anymore!
The other complaint? It had somewhere north of a 40’ turning circle which meant 2-3 times as long for Aimee to complete her strategic u-turns in the downtown streets .
I don’t enjoy the car buying process. Few do. I must say though, we had a very good purchasing experience at the Grossinger City Toyota dealer downtown. I won’t go into the details here but it was better in every way than the Lombard dealership. Alan made me realize a) what a good deal we were getting downtown and b) where all those stereotypes of sleazy, lying car salesmen come from.
So far, this post has been pretty negative (bad TL, bad dealers). We love our new Camry!! It’s been fun to drive and interesting to re-learn some of our driving habits. Aimee looks great in it, Crowley loves the smell (who doesn’t) and I get to obsess just that much less about gas mileage!
Thanks to Tremaine and Roy at Grossinger for a fun, albeit long, car buying experience!!
