Archive for May, 2015

End of an Aura

Friday, May 22nd, 2015

This is the first time since 1993 there has not been a Saturn car in our garage (except a short stint while the silver one was at Baylor before we got the gold one). We have had a white ’93 Saturn, the ’96 silver SL1, a 2000 gold one, then the rudderless green Ion, then the brown 2007 Aura, and finally the 2009 green Aura. Two of them heroically gave their lives to keep us alive, and had GM not divested the Saturn division in late 2009, we would probably still be driving a Saturn. But alas, all good things must come to an end, and so our Saturn era ended with the Aura.

We have been planning to replace the Aura with a hybrid of some sort this fall, until I found a deal that I just couldn’t pass up. The top rated hybrid, according to Edmunds, was the midsize hybrid by Honda. BUT you were going to pay top dollar for the honor of owning the Honda. Ford’s Fusion Hybrid was rated almost as high as the Honda, but came with a much cheaper price tag. So using that comparison as a basis, the Ford hybrid was relatively cheap. When I found a new 2015 Fusion hybrid for over $6,000 LESS than the MSRP, I could not pass up the deal. We went to Hutto, Texas (Covert Ford) and test drove the car. I was leery about the power, the shifting between electric and gas power on the fly, and the overall comfort of the car. The Fusion is the exact same size as the Aura, so there isn’t even an adjustment for us to make in driving it. We traded immediately after the test drive.

Update, 3 June 2015.  Fantastic car! We love it so far. Around 44 mpg highway, and 50+ mpg city. Plenty of power when you need it, quiet going down the road, and it sports a backup camera and bluetooth phone connection as a standard feature! We love the hands free phone.