We, and tons of friends like the Prius…but to say it’s “comfortable” is a stretch. It’s particularly uncomfortable for longer drives. Seats just aren’t great.
The Honda Civic was redesigned not too long ago and they went with what appears to be a F-16-like rear end and it’s really on par, in terms of ugliness IMO, as the “predator” mouth of the Lexus front end.
I know where the auto manufacturers are getting their design clues, and I may be getting too “get off my lawn” old, but there are a few cars that I wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole and the Honda Civic is one of them now.
+1 on your Civic assessment, sushi. Butt ugly.
Again, with the Prius, there are option levels II, III, IV and V. So, the higher option level has better seats. And the latest seats are very nice, almost race car like, compared to the older models. The same with the tire and wheel packages. The higher trim level, the better tires and larger wheels.
OP here. Yes, I want a sedan. I do not want a Prius. I drive a 2010 Hyundai Elantra. They upgraded the design in 2011. I paid about $14,000 for mine. I would love another but the road noise is loud. H drives a Subaru wagon- 1995. Hate the seats and lots of road noise. As far as price we are looking at the high $30’s to low $40’s. H nor I are “into” cars and for me it is pretty much like a good kitchen tool. I have hated not having power memory for the seats and mirrors (I am 5’2" and H is 6’2"). I figure this will be the first and last luxury car I will own. If we keep it 12 yrs then I will probably just need something to drive short distances (I will be 80 and someone else can do the driving ;;).
We are behind schedule as far as getting this done and hate to wait another 3-4 weeks to land at the end of the month if we cannot find what we want quickly. I am going to drive an Audi and a Lexus hopefully tomorrow. Sending some emails now and if things still work the same I will get some replies by morning. I will report back here.
If we lower the price I will look at a Toyota Corolla and the new Kia that is getting good reviews.
Small is important to me because I like to fit in small parking spaces and a tight turning radius.
Love all of the conversation here!
" looking at the high $30’s to low $40’s"
Seriously go look at 3 year old Mercedes E Class. Quiet like a bank vault and comfier than your couch for both 5’2" you and your 6’2" hubby. Turning radius and maneuverability will spank even the smaller Japanese cars like Corolla - it’s big but incredibly maneuverable. Because it’s a prestige thing, people who are into what other people think want a brand new one so used ones are very reasonably priced.
AND SO MANY THANKS TO YOU!!
We bought an Audi4 S-line. (Prestige? Premier?–top choice whatever that is).
White with a tan interior. Very good price (not sure I could not have done better by $500-800 if I had taken more time). Low $40,000’s.
As Oregon does not have a sales tax our total tax was about $250.
This car is 6" longer than my Hyundai so seems huge to me :)).
There are SO MANY bells and whistles that it was exhausting to go through. Most H will love
and I do not care about at all. I love that it links our entire contact list from our phone to the Bluetooth in just a minute. Also, has all the safety features (except for the parallel parking) possible. All the navigation, etc. can read your text messages to you and show your emails on the screen (now just how safe and necessary is this?).
Sales guy super easy to work with for many hours --utterly exhausting. The last two cars I had done much more before meeting the internet sales so this is on me and our last minute decision that this is the last day of the month. Also on D for giving birth last Saturday and delaying our car buying :"> .
The finance guy was arrogant and awful and I nearly walked out. Turned out that he is causing a lot of
trouble for the sales fleet. I have names and emails to get my pint of blood back but that is another post. I would not have walked but did think of telling our sales guy that he needed for us to work with someone else. This was the only down part of 5 hours.
I do not think I would have entered this fray so easily (remember I had never even driven this car before!) without the discussion here. I enjoyed the dialogue completely.
Consumer reports gives this car the “quietest and most reliable” car in the small luxury division.
I think it is quiet but I do not find it quite as quiet as a larger sedan and how I think a Mercedes is quiet.
But how much better than our old cars!
The silver lining is that we did not take their low ball offer for our Hyundai trade in figuring we would sell it through Next Door. On a Mother’s Intuition I called S in Seattle and he was thrilled as their 14 yr old Prius just died.
So everyone is very happy.
Glad to answer any questions!
Congrats! I love my S4. Audi is the best of fun to drive coupled with comfortable.
Wishing you many happy miles!
Congrats! Buying a car is worse than dunking head into a toilet. Glad you got what you like! 
Sounds like you and I need to start a thread “easiest place to sell a car.” Kid wants an AWD for her snowy adventures, so we will be selling her Corolla Matrix… do not want to spend too much time on it but don’t want to give it to the vultures either.
Try your Next Door.
Keep the price low and a happy HS or College kid will snap it up.
Unless it is worth more – Audi simply did not want to deal with a Hyundai (ha ha go figure).
I knew ours was not worth much to them.
They use Kelly Blue Book but car people I know use Edmunds value.
What about a Suburu Impreza with a trade in? Ours just died after 22 yrs and with D on the East Coast for it’s last
5. We loved that car!
Z! Thanks!
Mom60
The finance guy showed us the extras and we said no-- read them online and NO.
He came back to it a few minutes later and quite insisted he needed to tell us about it. We glazed over and the said No!
Ridiculous
You can go to CarMax and get a baseline quick-sale offer, good for 7 days (no need to buy another car from them), so you can have a basis of comparison to other offers.
Congrats on the Audi and the grandchild!!
I have a 2014 Audi Allroad. I am not new to Audis (my 3rd and 5th in the family) but was quite shocked to have to pay $177+ labor to replace a front headlight. This is a high intensity lowbeam, not the entire light assembly.With that said, I am still a fan. I give myself “points” when I happen to be in a line of at least 3 Audis on the highway, kind of like Candy Crush 
Great choice. Enjoy!
Update: H drove the car home Sunday. I was just exhausted. On Monday I did look inside and sit for a minute but did not drive it. Today I did drive and H was with me and a few things threw us but mostly we figured out. Remember that he drives a 2005 Subaru and I drive an 8 yr old basic Hyundai Elantra. They are like having basic black and white TV without remote to our currents TV’s. Very intimidating.
Watched a Tube for the proununciation --Audi sounds like Cloudy.
Stopped in a specialty grocery parking lot and there was a new bigger fancier Audi next to me and 3 others there> I call this the “Nordstrom’s of grocery stores” and so guessing I did not look like someone’s laborer today.
Quite humorous to me.
This car is quiet! Some road noise on a rough highway but so quiet city driving.
It shuts off at most stops which is weird to me but it has turned on again as soon as I take my foot off of the brake. It had a GPS on the dash and a larger on on the console. I find it just too much and we figured out how to turn the console off. I want the dash off but not sure if we can do that.
The only bell and whistle missing is the wandering out of the lane alarm. Everything else seems to be there–backup, love the side lights on the mirrors when a car is approaching.
Not enough glove compartment or middle arm rest storage–slightly annoying. Trunk is huge.
Hope all of the posters who helped immensely see this and see the big Thank You.
Also, can answer questions (maybe).