It has been a good year in the stock market and living up country is VERY inexpensive so I decided to buy a car for my wife. I'm quite happy with my Nissan pickup but you know how women are. After looking at scads of second hand cars and their prices I decided that buying new was not that much more expensive. I had generally decided on a Toyota Vios but after going to the dealer and looking at the tiny wheels and finding the instrument cluster in the center of the dash I DIDN'T like it at all. Next stop was the Ford dealer. The Focus was better but expensive starting at 767,000 baht. I couldn't see a lot of value for the money. Next was the Honda dealer. The Jazz is impressive. I couldn't believe all the room inside and the way the seats fold down for an incredible amount of space. The 15 inch alloy wheels looked like wheels instead of toy car wheels. The price at 540,000 was 10,000 baht cheaper than the Vios. Then I made a big mistake. I saw a Civic RX all loaded out. All the goodies with automatic transmission, 1.7 liter V-Tec engine and disk brakes all around. It looks quite sporty and I decided that all the rest were outclassed. The sticker price of 850,000 wasn't a surprise and I walked away from it. The wife was looking at the cheaper City and Civic models and she really likes the Jazz. The dealer knew I liked the fancy Civic so he went to work on me. No discount on the Jazz but since the 2006 model Civics are changed quite a bit so he finally discounted 60,000 baht. That brought it to 790,000. He also sweetened the deal and included a year of class 1 insurance. 300,000 baht down and the balance with an interest rate of 2.55 percent. I need that car like I need another hole in my head but I like it. I'm hoping I'll come to my senses before buying something I don't need. LOL!

The new Vios upgraded last month is best value for your money, but since you are purchasing a car for your wife i think she would be happy with the Jazz.

Barry