Post from QualityCounts (aka SUVshopper) - I bought a car

[QualityCounts]

After months of test driving many vehicles including the Kluger, Territory, Prado, 380 and Civic, I bought a RAV4 Cruiser auto today. I followed what many people had advised in this forum - get the vehicle to suit what you intend to do with it.
The RAV4 suits me best. I wanted a car with a high riding position, lots of storage space, reasonable size, good fuel consumption, safety features including ESP, side curtain airbags, dual auto climate control, 6 CD stacker with at least 6 speakers and audio controls on steering wheel, some off road capability and costs not more than $40K.
As posted before, I've a Magna that's 15 years old. I traded this car in for the RAV4 and got a changeover price of $37K. I had to negotiate hard with three dealers to get that price. The rrp (excluding ORC) for the car is $39,490.
Over the past 17 years, I've owned eight cars and only one of those had been an imported one - a Civic. I told myself that I deserved to get another imported car. I've already contributed well to the local car industry at this stage.
In a couple of years time, I'll trade in my other '98 Commodore for the next gen Falcon or Territory. BTW, my fuel consumption on the Commodore is a pathetic 6 km for every litre of petrol !
I considered the Territory for a long time. As mentioned before, I could get Ford employee pricing for it. I love the 6 speed, but I couldn't justify to have another high fuel consumption car.
Some of you must be wondering why I changed my user name from SUVshopper to QualityCounts. I had to re-register again recently because for more than a month I had problems logging in as SUVshopper.