Good Vibe

Well, we did it! After much online window shopping, review reading and test driving various hatchback vehicles we finally purchased the Pontiac Vibe. In our not-very-American opinion, this car is the minimum space required for a family of four to functionally fit in for 10 years. It's a four door, hatchback, with folding seats for loading and it gets mid-20s to low 30's mpg. Our top five deal breakers when car shopping were:

• fuel economy/environmental impact
• sufficient space for family of four
• reliability
• functionality (storage and loading potential)
• and, of course, all of this had to fit within our budget (budget? what's that?)

Among the cars determined to meet our criteria we compared them on less important things like comfort and style. Comfort isn't far down the list for me, actually, since we have been known to take long road trips (up and down CA and across the country multiple times, for example). Not only did the Vibe meet all of our essential criteria but my fragile back and neck have never felt so good riding in a vehicle - for real - the support is exactly where I need it. AND there's plenty of room for my knees and face when the infant car seat is behind me. I'm very satisfied with our purchase. The only thing that would have made this ride sweeter would be a bright yellow shell - my favorite vehicle color. We chose from red, white and silver and bought the silver. Matt didn't care about the color. I thought white was begging for frequent washing and red said, "Hi, I'm in my 20's or at least I wish I was." The silver model seemed more honest about our elderliness.

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We bought the basic model but some standard features I love are: AIR CONDITIONING - it's been a long couple of years driving in the sweaty summer heat, especially pregnant!, a three-pronged power outlet, OnStar ability (free for a year) and the car has a cell phone built into the speakers which you buy minutes for. The car gets 5 times better reception than cell phones so when we're traveling through the mountains we can make and receive calls if necessary.

The Pontiac Vibe is GM but it runs on a Toyota platform, in other words, this car is the mechanical twin of the Toyota Matrix. This is significant since GM is discontinuing Pontiac altogether because of their financial crisis. But their financial crisis is our gain. They sold it to us for DIRT cheap.

Here's a virtual tour:

Review: 2009 Pontiac Vibe - Click here for the funniest movie of the week