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August 14, 2021
Image by Sophie Janotta from Pixabay

Decisions Decisions...

Posted on August 14, 2021  •  7 minutes  • 1298 words

This is the sixth and final part of a multi-part series. The links below will get you all caught up.

Time is a funny thing. My 34-year old body never misses an opportunity to remind me that she’s getting older. A simple stretch a few days ago turned into many unpleasant days and sleepless nights from a spasm in my neck and shoulder that’s still bringing a few choice words to my lips as I write this. Most of us go to bed at night and wake up in what seems like a few minutes later to the light of day and several hours passing on the clock, but a night filled with intense pain and no sleep will remind you just how long 8 hours actually is.

Similarly, those reading along on this journey with me are only now finding out my final decision; even though everything was finalized before I even started writing part 3 a few weeks ago. For me, time surrounding this story kept moving ever forward, while for those reading it’s been paused and stretched to cover the span of a month and a half all told. Time keeps flowing on, but how we all experience that passage of time is different for every single person; as it’s shaped by our thoughts, feelings, choices, and individual circumstances.

If you remember the three cars I test drove and if you're a fan of Jurassic Park/Jurassic World you've likely already made the connection.

If you’ve read the previous parts of this series, you’ll know that I really loved my wonderful 2016 Mazda3 Sport GS hatchback (named “Corsa”). In a perfect world, or just a world where I would have the physical space and money anyway, I definitely would have kept her if I was going to buy a new car. Unfortunately buying a new car meant giving her up, and while I’m sad that I let her go (yes tears were shed), I felt the time was right to move forward to the next stage in my personal car journey.

The name of my new car is “Blue”. If you remember the three cars I test drove and if you’re a fan of Jurassic Park/Jurassic World you’ve likely already made the connection. That’s right, it’s the 2022 Hyundai Veloster N DCT in Performance Blue!!

I have had this car for a month now, and I can honestly say that I do not currently have any regrets about my choice. This car is so much more fun overall than anything you can experience on a short hour long test drive, and taking it to a proper twisty-turny back road was everything I hoped it would be and then some.

I didn’t feel that it was enough of an upgrade over my 5-year old version to justify spending that much money.

None of this is to say however that the two Mazda’s are bad choices. Absolutely not! They’re both phenomenal vehicles in their own right, but neither were quite what I was looking for right now. Let me explain.

Between the 2021 Mazda3 Sport GT Turbo AWD and the 2021 Mazda CX-30 GT Turbo AWD, the Mazda3 Sport was my favourite. When deciding on whether or not I’d replace my existing 3 Sport with a new car, however, the 2021 3 Sport was actually ranked third in my final decision.

Yes the car was fantastic, and yes it had the oomph and extra sportiness feel that I was looking for, and yes the interior was freaking amazing. But, I didn’t feel that it was enough of an upgrade over my 5-year old version to justify spending that much money. That value wasn’t there for me.

I love nature. I love hiking and fishing. Not a big fan of camping because Princess Foo Foo (i.e. me) needs her bed.

Which leads us to the CX-30, numero deux in my final placement. In a straight up comparison, like I said I would take the 3 Sport over the CX-30. But again, thinking about what I was upgrading from, the CX-30 had more value to me as an upgrade. I would get an almost identical driving feel, practically the same size vehicle, the same awesome interior, and I would get an extra 2 inches of ground clearance with an “offroad assist” mode.

Now that is a more attractive upgrade option considering our wild Canadian winters and numerous access points to nature all around. I’m not going to lie I had the campy lifestyle visions in my head of exploring and camping that they sell you in the commercials for SUVs and crossovers of any size, but I had to admit that having a vehicle that’s more capable of taking me to “more places” is not going to actually make me go to more places.

I love nature. I love hiking and fishing. Not a big fan of camping because Princess Foo Foo (i.e. me) needs her bed. All the places I currently want to go I could get to in my 2016 3 Sport with 5.6 inches of ground clearance. So while the extra height would be nice, by no means is it a necessity.

So that leaves us with the Veloster N. For the money spent to upgrade, that car felt worth it to me because it was an entirely different beast than my 2016 or either of the Mazda’s. Sure I might need to find a creative way to get it into my driveway during the winter because of the low approach angle. And yea, it needs Premium 91+ and has worse fuel economy, but honestly it’s currently 9.1 L/100KM (~26 US MPG) after a month of using multiple driving modes (including N mode of course!) so I’m pretty happy with that.

The other thing was the Universe was basically telling me to buy this car:

The Universe was basically saying “Look girl, what else do I need to do for you? Just buy the damn thing already!!!”

I try to avoid the whole “Fear Of Missing Out” concept when making decisions, but I honestly feel that if I didn’t buy this car after having the opportunity to do so, I would have deeply regretted it for a long time. The 2022 Hyundai Veloster N DCT, “Blue”, is now my forever car : )

Thank you for taking the time to come on this journey with me, I hope you enjoyed reading this series as much as I enjoyed writing it.

All articles in this series:

Thanks so much for reading ^‿^

Claire

If you enjoyed reading this article, please consider buying me a pizza slice!

See Also

Hey You! Yeah You!

I hope you have a wonderful day! : )