For our past 3 or 4 car loans -- and this dates back to around 1999 -- we've rolled forward a not small amount of negative equity. It was fairly small at first, but gradually got pretty big, and needed to be taken care of.

We'd decided it was time to change our vehicle situation. We had the 2006.5 Kia Optima as mentioned in a 2006 blog post. We liked it, but it was aging a bit, and we kind of wanted something new. We also had a 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 we bought back in early 2008. When we got it, we thought we'd use it a ton, but then over the last year realized we're not really apart often enough to warrant having 2 vehicles. That and when we did go anywhere, it was always in the Optima, as the truck had a 5.9l V8 engine and thus sucked down gas like an unholy gas-vampire.

So, we'd decided we'd pare down to just one vehicle. Now we both have hobbies that involve large, somewhat oddly shaped objects that need to be moved sometimes. I have R/C flying and rocketry and she's got her spinning wheel. So we need something that can cart those things around when needed. So, a truck, an SUV, or one of those new "cube shaped" type vehicles. Trucks and SUVs are overkill and get horrible gas mileage, so we decided to look into the cube-cars.

There's basically 3 on the market: Scion xB, Nissan cube, and Kia Soul. There's also the Honda Fit, though it's more of a wagon. It has a similar cargo area to the "cubes" though so we looked at it too.

The first one we looked at, the Kia Soul, was late on Friday night. It was 30 minutes before closing time at the dealership and there were no salesmen available, but the sales manager was happy to let us take a Soul out for a test drive. It was a Sport version, and we immediately liked it. Didn't take it for a long drive as we wanted to be kind to the sales manager. So we planned to continue our search the next morning.

Car dealerships open at 8 AM here, so 8 AM on Saturday we headed out to the Nissan Dealer to try a cube. They had only one in stock - a "Krom" model. Very nice. Took it out for a drive through town and 2 exits down the highway. Definitely a very nice vehicle. Most of the value of the car has been put into what I'd call "bling" features. Chromed handles, dashboard accents, high end rims, things like that. Ride is very nice, audio and such also very nice.

Next up was the Scion xB. We headed to Rohrman Toyota/Scion and got a salesman. Cesar Vasquez, a very no-pressure, no-nonsense guy. He found us an xB with the features we'd want and let us take it out. We took it out on basically the same route. Nice. The seating was very comfortable, and definitely felt "fit" to us. I imagine if you're outside of that "fit" the seats wouldn't feel as nice. This xB had the high-end Pioneer audio system with touch-screen and nav, which I liked as I'm a gadget freak. Ride and handling were very nice. It seems a large portion of the value was put into the seating and navigation package here, though everything on the car is nice.

Next we wanted to give the Soul a better test drive, so we asked Cesar if he was able to sell from the Kia dealership too, and he let us know he can work with anything Rohrman sells. So we headed over to the Kia dealership. This time, a Soul Limited Edition was out (previously it was up on a display lift). The LE is a special edition, limited to 1200 produced. It has the high end audio, power sun/moon roof, and basically all the features you can get on a Soul, plus a special paint/detailing job. We took it out for the same test-loop. Again very nice. We were starting to like the Soul over the other 2. Nothing is especially "uber", but every feature of the vehicle is definitely "nice".

While there, she kept noticing the collection of Honda Fits they had on the Honda lot which is the next lot over from the Kia lot. We didn't test one out, but headed home to think about things. We kept coming back to maybe needing to give the Fit a test drive so a few hours later we headed back to try one out.

I'll be honest: it's junk. Even the AC is substandard, and on max settings it can't handle the somewhat mild 85-89 degree day we were having. Yeah. WTF was Honda thinking? We'd figured given Honda's reputation (and pricing!) and given this was a similarly priced vehicle, it'd be similarly appointed. Nope. Anyway, at least that finally ruled one out.

When we got back, Cesar asked us if there was any clear "winner" emerging, and we told him definitely... the Soul. So we went inside to start working numbers.

We knew we were negative on the Optima but weren't sure how much, since we weren't sure how much the dealer would give us for it. We hadn't decided to turn in the truck yet, so we had them see what the deal would look like with just the Optima. Cesar said they "might" be able to find a bank that would work with the negative equity figure, but it might be tricky given the high amount. It was later we came back and decided we'd trade in both vehicles. Turns out we made a small amount on the truck, since in our area gas-sucking beasts are worth a little more. Still, we had the large negative equity we were told might be hard to find a bank to work with.

We wouldn't know anything until Monday, since the dealership and the banks are closed on Sundays, and it was already late on Saturday anyway. So we had Saturday night and all of Sunday to talk things over.

We came to the decision that we wanted to be done with rolling forward negative equity, forever. We have a fund we run throughout the year that holds the money held aside to pay our Self-Employment Tax come April. It tends to get pretty huge, as the Feds are money-vampires, so there's plenty to work with... if we can have a clear plan to make sure it's funded well enough come tax time. So we decided we'd fund this "get out of negative equity" venture from there.

I called Cesar first thing Monday morning to give him the good news, and have them get delivery prep started on the vehicle. :) He was of course very happy to hear we'd take care of the negative equity (of course!) so got things rolling. We headed to the dealer at noon to finalize everything.

We weren't sure what the exact negative equity figure was, but we'd talked about putting in some more over that, to serve as more of a down payment on the vehicle. Turns out it was low enough (with help from the small amount we made on the truck) that we could make a decent little down payment on the car itself. We cut our monthly vehicle payments basically in half, and that's not counting what we'll save on insurance (and gas!)

About 2 hours later, we drove off in our new 2010 Kia Soul Limited Edition! Woot!

It's got, well, pretty much everything you could want... 315w audio with 6-disc changer, Sirius, iPod/etc input, and Bluetooth handsfree for your phone. Linked right up with our iPhones. Voice dialing works great. Also we have a power sun/moon roof, a fairly huge cargo area, and everything else you expect on cars these days (power everything, etc). We love the thing. ;)

It was a great buying experience too. If you're in the Lafayette area, and want to buy any car that the Rohrman group sells, talk to Cesar. He's awesome. Also the Kia sales manager, Todd, is awesome to work with. Couldn't have asked for a better buying experience!

In other news, I got the second half of my Red Arrow Hobbies rocketry order. This included my launch controller (which is good, since now theoretically I can launch rockets finally) and my PML Callisto high power rocket kit. That thing is built like a TANK, can't wait to build it. I'm still waiting on the 18mm and 24mm reloadable motor casings. I called Red Arrow and they said the manufacturer is being annoying. Oh well. I could use single-use motors if I want to launch an 18 or 24mm rocket. I've got the 29mm and 38mm motor setups at least.

The Omega isn't done; I haven't had any time to work on it. I did order and receive a pre-built wing wiring harness though, as I apparently totally fail at the small scale soldering you have to do, to make the harness yourself. Oh well. I may end up having a friend work on the bird, in order to get it going faster, but I haven't decided yet. I want to do it myself, for sure, but good flying season is pretty fast going away and I'd like to fly it this season if I can, heh. We'll see.

All in all, a good last few days. ;)