24 March 2013- After almost a year of considering what to do about the 8-year-old Outback which was showing signs of becoming expensive to repair (overheating, CEL indicating time to replace the catalytic converters, etc.), the actual event went rather quickly. With our tax refund safely deposited in the bank, I started to search online using Kelley Blue Book (kbb.com). It gave me a big list of choices for relatively-new, used small SUVs. I had pretty much decided that if we were going to keep the Aliner, then we would need a 6-cylinder vehicle to tow it [I waffled back and forth on this and finally went for the V-6 because there were hardly any I-4s available]. If we were going to continue to fly and hike, we’d better have at least all-wheel drive and good ground clearance. The Ford Escape fit the bill but Consumer Reports didn’t have much good to say about the 2012. The magazine, however, liked the 2012 Kia Sorento and ranked it only slightly below the smaller Toyota RAV4 and Subaru Forester. So I narrowed it down to the 2011 and 2012 Sorento. Performance Kia in Everett caught my eye with a Certified Pre-Owned 2012 with the full manufacturer’s warranty: 5 yrs/60,000 mi full-coverage and 10 yrs/100,000 mi engine/drivetrain (but, two strikes: it had over 32,000 mi on it and was dark green, not C.J.’s favorite color). I planned to go up there Monday the 25th to take a look anyway. Saturday night I spent a few more hours looking on the Web and noticed that Kia of Puyallup had a titanium (i.e., gray) 2012 with about 23,000 mi for $22,899 (that was the internet price, $26,931 on the window). On Sunday I went down to Puyallup more to get in some practice dealing with used car salespeople than in expectation of actually buying a car. Fortunately, KOP is a low-pressure dealership, or at least Scott Clymer was. I looked at the titanium Sorento, noted that it had the third row seats that I did not want (and then found out that all V-6 2012 Sorento LXs had the third row). I looked at some other Sorentos including some high end ones and finally went back to test drive the titanium one. Lots of power, but we’ll pay for that with lower gas mileage (although Scott claims that the V-6 loses only about one mpg vs. the I-4; we’ll see). Scott took the Outback keys to have it appraised and I settled in for what I figured would be a long wait. I was surprised when he came back within a relatively short time with an offer for the Outback. It was about a thousand dollars lower than I had expected so I asked him to ask his manager to squeeze some more money out of the trade. The result was an increase of $500 bringing the total to $4700. Good enough. Next we filled out some paperwork before bringing me to Ryan, the financial guy. There was a big chunk (9.6%) added for taxes and almost $300 for registration, license and whatever. Then Ryan started checking my credit rating and trying to find a loan rate better than I could get from Bank of America (3.49%). Apparently I have a really good credit rating because he was able to get the APR down to 2.50% from Alaska USA, and he was also able to lower the payments if I purchased an extended warranty. I had done some researching on my smartphone while waiting for Scott to finish doing the trade-in appraisal and found that USAA was offering a 72 mo/ 60,000 mi pretty good warranty for $1850. There was a strong recommendation however to get the manufacturer’s warranty rather than a third-party contract if possible. Ryan offered a 10 yr/100,000 mi bumper-to-bumper warranty with towing and car rental from Kia for $1250. [The price wasn’t obvious at first because it was quoted as $X more per month, but Ryan was willing to break it down into actual costs.] Another deduction was possible if I signed up for three years of oil changes at KOP for $347 (to assure that I kept to the terms of the warranty). In addition I purchased an alarm/tracking system (Geo Track, similar to Lojack) for about $6 extra per month (which is right around the amount that USAA will discount my insurance bill for having a tracker that police can use to find a stolen car). The whole thing ended up being about $304/mo for 6 yrs. Scott moved the Sorento into a breezeway and put the Outback right behind it so I could move all the stuff from the spare tire area, under the seats and out of the door pockets and console into the new car. It was after 3 p.m. by the time I finished and left the dealership, so on the way home I stopped to get some lunch at Costco and fill the tank. I hadn’t checked the gas filler hatch at the dealership and now I found the hinge was not firmly attached to the vehicle. That’s something they’ll have to fix along with the broken sunglasses holder. When I got home C.J. was ready to go for a ride so we went out to the North Fork road just to see how the AWD/locked differential worked on a dirt road. We also tried the downhill brake control that keeps the vehicle going slow on a steep hill automatically. We noticed that there doesn’t seem to be a thermometer readout on the dashboard even though there appears to be a temperature sensor in front of the radiator. Also, the air bag seat sensor does not detect C.J. is in the passenger seat when she is sitting on a pillow. We’ll have to get that worked out or she won’t have the protection of the air bags.
26 Mar, Tuesday – Scott called me this morning to check on
how I was liking the Sorento. I told him about the air bag problem and he said the
same thing - a smaller, firmer pillow. Later I tried various combination of
pillows and none worked.
27 Mar, Wed – I had a dentist appt. and afterwards stopped
into Lee Johnson KIA to pick up an accessory catalog and price the cargo mat
(not available for the 7-seater, have to special order). In the afternoon I drove
C.J. in to Issaquah for her appointment with Dr. Ngan. The passenger air bag OFF
was illuminated. I hope we can find a workaround. In the evening I surfed a KIA forum without
finding anything (except for a couple of photos showing what the rear area
looks like after removing the seats – four bolts each)
28 Mar, Thu – KIA of Puyallup called to schedule the service
that needs to be done: fix sunglasses holder, install Geo Tracker, fix gas
filler hatch, and figure out what to do about the passenger seat air bag sensor.
Next Thu at 1030.
29 Mar, Fri – I spent a little time looking beneath the
Sorento to see how I would route a wire from the hitch area to the battery –
looks easy once I get it in front of the rear axle. It’s just a matter of
following the existing wires. I’m considering buying the trailer brake
installation kit from eTrailer. That would provide all the circuit breakers,
ring terminals, wire tires, 7-way RV plug receptacle and hanger and two 25-ft
lengths of 10 ga wire. Later I tried folding the second row of seats up and the
passenger-side seat would not fold. When it does fold, that part of the rear
seat folds twice. One more thing for the service guys at KOP to look at. [I put the comprehensive coverage back on the Trooper because I remembered that I wanted to replace the windshield before trying to sell it.]
[continued to detail all the mods and service in my written journal...]
[continued to detail all the mods and service in my written journal...]
