a990dna said:
greynolds,
based on the above, is it safe to say this is your "first" new car experience?...
Not sure how you'd come to that conclusion, but no it's not safe to say that. You asked, but I'll still apologize in advance for the long post that follows

.
Let's see:
1986 Pontiac Sunbird Turbo - used (bought in 1988)
1989 Honda Civic - new
1995 Mitsubishi Montero - new
1995 Land Rover Discovery - used (bought in 1997)
2000 Honda Accord - new
2005 Nissan Pathfinder - new
2006 Lexus LX-470 - new
The Sunbird was trouble and it was a good thing I bought an extended warranty with it. I don't remember all the specifics, but it went through 2 engines and a turbo. By the time the dealership finally fixed it, I traded it in for the Honda Civic. I actually got more for the Sunbird on trade in than I paid for it thanks to the new engine and turbo.
The Civic was great, but at the time I bought it I was still in school and couldn't afford to get it with A/C. Once I started working full time, I had a 120 mile round trip for work, so A/C became a priority.
The Montero was great, but I wanted to get into off roading and aftermarket support for anything Mitsubishi was and is pretty pathetic.
The Discovery was, well a Land Rover

. Up till now, it was probably my favorite vehicle overall - I'm guessing the LX may take the torch once I get settled in. It was also the most frustrating vehicle I've owned in some ways - such a great design, but such poor quality control. There's a very enthusiastic Land Rover community just about everywhere. Lots of discussion forums, lots of clubs, lots of opportunity to go out and off road with other Land Rovers and the vehicles can tackle just about anything so long as the idiot behind the wheel knows what to do.
As gas prices started creeping up and my Land Rover started evolving into more trail beast than daily driver, I decided it would be prudent to get something to commute to work in, so I got the Honda Accord. As one would expect, it was a typical Honda - drive it, change the oil, repeat. Nothing spectacular, but extremely reliable.
Over the next few years, I was finding less and less time to get out and play with the Land Rover, keeping 2 vehicles wasn't really very practical (the insurance alone gets to be cumbersome), but I definitely wanted to have something to drive that was big enough for camping trips, had 4 wheel drive, etc. so I decided to sell the Land Rover and trade in the Honda for a new SUV.
My first thought was Toyota, but the 4Runner was a bit cramped and the current Land Cruiser struck me as underpowered for the money, so I didn't even bother looking at the Land Cruiser (or LX) - nor was I really interested in paying THAT much for a vehicle. Anything from the domestic manufacturers (ie: Ford, GM, Jeep) was out for concerns over quality control. Land Rover was out for the same reason. That didn't leave too many options in my $25-40k target price range. The 2005 Nissan Pathfinder seemed to be just right. Rugged enough for mild off roading. Big enough that I was comfortable in the drivers seat for long trips. Plenty of cargo space. Reasonably priced and had lots of power and features for the money. Unfortunately, I didn't adequately try out the automatic climate control system (I had never owned a vehicle with automatic climate control before) and later found that it didn't have enough adjustment range at the low end to give me a comfortable temperature. It may seem like a minor point, but it was driving me nuts. So I lived with it for a while figuring I had to at least get a year out of it - which I just barely did. There were a few other minor things about the Pathfinder (tight on headroom, quality control wasn't where I expected Nissan to be, etc.), but the auto climate control was the biggest complaint.
So I started looking for options again. The Toyota Sequoia was just too big and if I spent that much, I figured the Land Cruiser wasn't that much more, plus the Land Cruiser got the bigger V8 this year. I started looking around, but Land Cruisers were pretty much impossible to come by around here, so I gave the LX a try. The rest is history...