Yeah, I got a new car on Thursday night and it's fast...
It's a new Suzuki SX4....
2008 Vivid Red Touring II manual. Anyways, I've been driving it a few days and I almost have 200 miles on it. I was worried after the first day of driving it and thought there was no way I could get used to driving it, but I'm slowly starting to like it. My Impreza had so many small problems at 212,000 miles that it wasn't worth putting money into. It was a great car and I'll miss it (first car). This car will be primarily used for winter and rainy days so AWD was needed. Honestly I would have went for a Fit Sport if I could deal with FWD. Would have gotten better gas mileage too, but oh well. The Touring model has fog lights, ESP, Smartpass keyless entry, rear spoiler, and an upgraded audio system. A lot of cool features that other cars in this class never have like automatic climate control. Even the base model SX4 has alloy wheels. Base Impreza...nope.

Now for the negatives. There are no lights on the window switches or the steering wheel controls, shifting takes awhile to get used to (revs hang after shifting), can hear gas moving in the tank after parking, power is enough to keep up with traffic but a little more would help, 11 gallon gas tank, audio system isn't that great, and the front side windows are a little weird to get used to. Overall though, for the size of car/weight it handles corners pretty flat which surprised me. I remember riding in my friends Scion xA and thinking the thing might tip over in a bend, not this car. The ride is kind of stiff but not too bad, just the right amount. Steering is weighted pretty well and the leather wheel is thick. (two important things to me) You sit up higher and I'm used to sitting in my Miata which feels like a bathtub so complete opposite there. Overall, I hope this is a good car. Warranty is great and incentives are great at the moment. I was going to wait for the 09's with standard navigation but my $500 auto show coupon expired at the end of May. Seeing as the base Impreza 5 door starts at $17,500 and the loaded SX4 is $17,000...I think it's a good buy. I will try to post pictures after I wash it for the first time tomorrow night.