I am a fairly picky person when it comes to acquiring cars for personal use. I prefer manual transmissions. I prefer that vehicles handle nimbly. I prefer that they stop on a dime. I prefer that they corner like they're on rails. I prefer that they can accelerate their way out of potential accidents. I prefer smaller cars. I prefer cars that aren't on the HOA-friendly spectrum of greys, silvers, whites, blacks and tans.
Prior to this month, my last two purchases were both custom-ordered cars
- My car — a 2002 BMW 330Ci convertible — had to be custom-ordered because I wanted features that just weren't available on dealers lots. Specifically, I wanted a convertible (as I'd fallen in love with having one due to my prior roadster) and I wanted a car that handled nimbly for its size and weight. Since I was custom-ordering, I took the opportunity to buy a color that wasn't normally available in the North American market, "techno violet metallic":
- My wife's car — a 2012 Mini Countryman S — also had to be factory-ordered. At the time, there were damned few on the lot with manual transmissions, and of the ones that were, they were all HOA-friendly colors. Wife was never going to accept one of those colors, not when it would have to sit in our driveway next to my metallic-violet convertible. So, we ordered one in Chili Red:
Pretty spiffy, even at almost 13yo
For better or worse, my wife's nearly 13yo car had decided to become too expensive to justify its ongoing maintenance costs. In the past 18 months, it had had two failures that resulted in the need to be towed and one that required significant garage-time and repair expensive. Basically, in the last 18 months, a car with a $4000 blue-book value had cost north of $12000 in repairs, only one of which were "natural wear and tear" in nature (and ignoring tire-replacements due to road hazards).
This set us on the path of looking at new cars. While we both significantly prefer manual transmissions over automatics, vehicles with manual transmissions have become very rare on dealers' lots and even in manufacturer's lineups. We both also prefer smaller cars. We'd agreed, a few years earlier, that if we were giving up stickshifts, it would only be for EVs. So, we started by looking at EVs that weren't ginormous and weren't ridiculously-priced. We ended up trying out:
- BMW i4: while, at $65K, normally more expensive than we'd like, the local BMW dealer was trying to clear the 2025s off their lot to get ready for the arrival of the 2026es. They'd adjusted their pre-haggling price to lower-middle $50Ks
- Hyundai Ioniq 5: at nearly $60K (before dealer incentives), it was at the edge of our price-range
- Volkswagen ID4: at a shade over $55K (before dealer incentives) it was still within the top third of our desired price-range
- Ford Mustang Mach-E: priced similarly to the ID4, it was still within the top third of our desired price-range
- Volvo EX30: priced in the mid $40Ks (before dealer incentives), it was about $8K more than our Mini was when new but $15K less than when my BMW was new
The BMW:
While I am beyond happy with my current BMW, I'd heard rumblings both about build-quality and handling.
- My wife's Mini — a BMW group product — has had a litany of build-quality issues: it lost its first clutch at less than 35,000 miles (fortunately, within the warranty period) and, particularly lately (see above) has been suffering a spate of "we don't usually see those kinds of failures" durability issues.
- I also have friends and acquaintances who have or have had BMWs made since 2010: my wife's Mini isn't the only BMW group product with quality issues
- When we were last looking for a car — what ultimately became our Mini — I'd stopped in at the dealership to check out the X1. The salesguy asked what else we were looking at. I'd told him we'd liked the Mini and he turned up his nose and said something about their ride being "too harsh". When a BMW salesman tells you that another marque's ride is "too harsh", you know that BMW has lost the plot. That one statement caused me to cut our interaction short and to tell the salesman, "if you think the Mini's ride is too harsh, I know that I'll hate everything you have on offer here".
In spite of the above, we went to look at the i4: the price-cut was too much to ignore. First bit of weirdness is that you had to schedule a test-drive ("uh... Ok. I guess you guys don't want impulse buyers, eh?"). So, we scheduled one. Next bit of weirdness is that, even though the dealership was located a quarter mile from the ramp to a 4-lane interstate, I wasn't allowed to take the car onto the highway. They also didn't have any areas for testing out the vehicle's handling/nimbleness. Other bit of weirdness was that the sales guy had to come with us. My wife is a nervous driver — barely able to tolerate my presence when she's at the wheel — so the salesman insisting on being in the car meant there was no way in hell that she was going to take the wheel. Last bit didn't really matter as I'd already noped on the car before she would have had her chance to drive. While the i4 has decent acceleration and is smooth in the straights, it is an ABSOLUTE PIG in turns. Further, when I'd pressed the salesman on finding a spot to test its handling, he acquiesced and directed me to a (very small) parking lot. I tried doing some slalums in the short length of the parking lot. The i4's handling in that lot made me want to vomit.
We took the car back to the dealership. The salesguy enthusiastically asked, "you interested in buying," and I responded that I found the i4's drive-quality to be extremely disappointing. I said something along the lines of "it's pretty clear that BMW has long since shed their 'driving machine' ethos". He asked if I'd be willing to talk to the sales manager. I agreed, mostly so I could better convey "you guys have seriously lost your way: this is a garbage car". The salesmanager seemed incredulous.
The Mustang Mach-E:
There's a Ford dealership walking distance to our house. This was actually the very last EV that we tried: driving past the Ford dealership on our daily trips to the gym (and back), I'd stopped noticing Mach-Es on their lot in recent months. I'd assumed they were no longer ordering them due to Trump's fuckery. Turns out, they still had them on the lot, just not immediately visible from the road and no longer in other than HOA-friendly colors.
Before heading over, I chatted at a friend who'd bought a Mach-E a few model-years earlier. He's a small-car guy, too (even though he'd had an early 2000s BMW M5 for a while). So, he warned me that, while he had been quite happy with his — enough so that he would buy another one if it made sense to do so — he did note that it was a bit large.
At any rate, we drove over. After parking my car (Mini was still in the shop), we started walking to the showroom. An overly-eager salesguy accosted us and asked us what we were looking for. Said we wanted to give the Mach-E a try. Took nearly twenty minutes to fetch one up. Went out to the car and, as with the BMW dealership, the salesguy wanted to ride-along (bah!). Worse, since "our" salesguy was very new, one of the more-senior salesguys wanted to come along, as well. Whatevs.
The door design on the Mach-E is beyond stupid: not only does it not have traditional door-handles, it doesn't even have the recessed ones that so many EVs have. Instead, you had to electronically release the door latch, then use a little flipper on the door to pull it open. Frankly, the door-flipper thing looked like utter ass — like it was glued on at the last minute. Wife insta-noped just because of how you get into the car. I felt committed to the test-drive, so I got the mirrors situated and started my run. The Mach-E was AWD, so I was more than a bit surprised that I was able to break the tires loose exiting the dealer's lot (not good). While it had nice acceleration and a non-wallowy drive, it felt extremely heavy. It also provided zero feedback through either the driver's seat or the steering-wheel. Driving down a residential street, I felt like I had zero idea of where the Mach-E's corners were. Finally understood why so many people like to straddle the centerlines of the streets in our neighborhood.
Got it back to the dealership and conveyed my misgivings. Sales manager asked what it would take to change my mind. Told him I would need a "can't refuse this deal" kind of low-price for me to even consider it. He assured me that he could get me that. What they came back with was more expensive than everything except the BMW i4 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5. So, uh, "nope".
They phoned me a couple days later. I said, "at that price, it's not even price-competitive with the cars I actually liked.
The Hyundai Ioniq 5:
I'd been looking forward to driving this one. It had very good reviews, was a nice size and had the features we were looking for. My neighbor had recently bought a Hyundai ICE-base car. He was pleased with the dealership. So, we drove down to that dealership for a try-out.
We'd first tried to get a test-drive while we were up in Pennsylvania at my mom's house. However, contrary to what Hyundai's web-site was showing for "in stock" availability, the dealership up there had none (well, they had one but it was broken). The web-site said they had nearly two dozen. So, it had been snake-eyes on that one.
Similarly, before driving out to the dealership where my Neighbor got his Elantra(?), the web-site was showing that they had nearly three dozen, two of which were Ioniq 5Ns (woot!). Got there and discovered that not only did they have zero 5Ns, they only had a handful of regular 5s at various trim-levels. Gave the salesguy my license and insurance information and he got us a key and took us out to the vehicle. He gave us a quick orientation, then headed back inside (yay! No stranger-danger passengers!). We took it out for a spin. It handled (considerably) better than either the i4 or the Mach-E. Quite-respectable acceleration. Flat and even in the turns. Was a little squishier while slaloming than I'd have preferred, but not intolerably so: I feel like the 5N would have been more to my handling preferences. Interior was very nicely laid out, especially the instrumentation. Got back to the dealership and talked price. It was upper-end of the $50-60K range. While I would probably have been ok dropping $70K on the 5N, dropping $60 on even a higher-trim (regular) 5 felt "iffy". Probably didn't help that it was $7K more expensive than the equivalent ID4, but didn't feel like a $7K greater value.
The Volkswagen ID4:
This was a pretty good peer-offering to the Ioniq 5. Good size. Marginally-better handling. Slightly inferior display layout. Better price than the Ioniq 5 — a price that felt better value-aligned than the Ioniq 5's price. Also like the Ioniq 5, it was a bit bigger than the Mini than I'd have liked, but the size came with additional range. I believe we'd have been quite satisfied with it. Other than the better price, this would have been a coin-flip compared to an equivalently-appointed Ioniq 5. At the time, its acquisition-options were a bit more attractive than the Ioniq's: while they wanted you to lease it, it also had a zero-down, 72month 0% purchase option. I wouldn't have had to touch any of my brokerage accounts and there'd have been no pressure to speed-pay it (to save on interest costs).
Only "concern" was (like with the Ioniq) lack of color options. My wife would have been whining at me for ages about doing something about the blandness (presumably resulting in spending a few $1000s to get it skinned).
The Volvo EX30:
This was the one we ended up buying:
While I'm not a fan of its having taken interior design-cues from the Tesla 3 — I prefer an instrument-display that's behind the steering wheel, not the solitary, iPad-esque centrally-located display — the display-setup was at least serviceable. Overall, the interior's design is very minimalistic. From the exterior, you wouldn't be able to tell it was an EV but for its lack of a grill.
When I was trying to make my buying decision, I was looking up reviews on Car & Driver for it (and, the ID4 and the Ioniq 5). It was top-rated in its segment. I was amused to see one of the cons as having a harsh/stiff ride. To me, it's the right kind of ride: it provides plenty of feedback to the driver by way of the seat and the steering wheel: you feel very connected to the road. You also feel very connected to the car, itself — easily being able to "feel" where the corners of the car are, how much grip your tires have, etc.. It drives nice and level and stays flat in the turns.
It's a very glassy design, so, you have excellent visibility of the traffic around you. So, while there's lots of sensors to help you out with knowing where traffic and other obstacles are, you don't really need those aids (frankly, the Mach-E would have been dangerous to drive without its sensors).
Ours has the dual-electric motors powering its AWD. It has 440 brake horsepower that the AWD puts a significant percentage of straight into the ground. Unlike the AWD Mach-E, I wasn't able to casually break the tires' grip.
The car really wants to go fast, though. I mean, on the drive back from picking the car up, I went to merge onto the outer-loop of the beltway. I stomped on the throttle, and it accelerated smoothly. It, perhaps, accelerates too smoothly: I looked down and was over 100MPH and at no time did it feel like it struggled to get there nor did is suffer any buffeting or other instability. Really, it feels a lot like driving my BMW …just that it's even quicker to blow through the 100MPH mark.
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