Introducing Newt

So.

Ripley had to go in for service last week.  Nothing big.  Just an oil change and coolant flush, but while I was there I might as well take a test drive in the 2014 Soul, right?

I drove the exclaim model and it was meh-okay, nothing spectacular.  But I told Jay he should drive one just to try it out, so the next day we went to a different dealership and tried out another Soul.  It was meh-okay.  I did love the panoramic sunroof, though.  Holy cow!  All the benefits of a convertible without the annoyances.

Neither one of us were bowled over with the upper-end Souls.  The poor salesman was disappointed, but we hadn't driven anything that we loved more than Ripley.  I mean,  we're talking about my Rip.  She's pretty much the shit, you know?

After a quick conference with the GM, our salesman came back and asked if we wanted to drive a base model.  Hell, test driving doesn't cost anything and we were already there, so we just shrugged and said, "sure".

What a blast!  The base model was so much more our style.  Turns out that our top-of-the-line 2010 Soul exclaim translated to a base model 2014.  Pretty much everything we had in Ripley comes standard in the base model.  We drove the automatic and were luke-warm about it, so they offered to bring in a manual transmission for us.

The next day, Saturday, we returned to the dealership.  Still not with any intention of trading in Ripley, but it was something to do on a Saturday afternoon.

The manual transmission with the new engine sucks donkey balls.  Jay drove the car first and complained about the transmission being "boggy", but from the passenger seat it didn't feel so bad.  We switched places for the drive back to the dealership and "boggy" isn't quite the right word for the accelerator dropping out from under your foot after each gear change.  I can't explain it well, but it was bad juju.  I'd shift, give it some gas and for just about half a second it was like the gas pedal disappeared until the engine decided to catch up.

When we got back to the dealership, we told the salesman that was the worst transmission we'd ever driven and encouraged him to take it out on the highway.  Seriously, something is effing wrong with how the transmission and the GDI (gasoline direct injection) engine work together.  Jay and I thought it was just that Soul, but in talking to Deejo, we realized that's just how it goes in the new GDI Kias.  Sucked.

We wandered the lot a bit, looking at other cars, but went back to the Souls.  The salesman pointed out a base-plus model in Alien II (the new green) and we took it for a spin.

Loved it.

Loved.

It.

We decided to see what they'd give us in trade on Ripley.  The trade was fair and we started the paperwork.  Monday evening, after he got home from work, Jay took Rip to the dealership and picked up Newt.

Newt had 27 miles on her when Jay picked her up.  We're still in the "getting to know you" stage, and there are things I really love about her (helllloooooo, back up camera), but I'm not going to lie, I miss Rip.  We had 88,500+ miles together and did lots of fun work to her.  After 88K miles, you know your car.  I was incredibly lonely driving home last night without Ripley's light-up speakers.  When we brought Ripley home, I thought the speakers were fun, but a gimmick.  However, having Rip "talk" or "sing" to me on the way home from work kept me company.


I also have a case of the guilts.  For the first time in my life, I've bought a big-ticket item because I wanted it.  For someone who was raised, and who raised her own kids, based on necessity, I have a little (okay, a fair bit) of guilt over spending that much money on a want, not a need.

But Newt sure is pretty and she smells good and I'm certain I'll be over the guilt in no time. :)

Note: Credit goes to Daddy Hawk for suggesting the name "Newt" when I bought Ripley.  Some members of my family thought "Newt" was too wimpy, so I went with Ripley.  This time, though, since Newt's color is Alien II, I can overrule the naysayers.  And she is a bit brighter and "cuter" than Ripley was.