Product pick of the week, My Kia

I might have to write another post about how much we loved buying our car at Carmax and how great our experience was there, but for now I will focus on my car.

I have had my 07 Kia Sedona for almost a year. Mine is white like the one in the picture.

We compared side by side with other minivans and decided that the Kia Sedona was all over the best value.

For starters it has a 5 star crash test rating. I love the middle row captains chairs instead of bench. Available power dual sliding doors. The windows in the sliding doors actually roll down.

But here are my favorite features:

This is the fold down convex kid mirror. A push from one finger releases this from hiding in the overhead console, so I can keep an eye on my chitlins. When they are not in the car, it just as easily folds back up. But this is my favorite:

The rear seats fold completely into the floor. And it is so easy to do, you can do it with one hand. I even borrowed my friends baby, so I could prove that it could be done with one hand while holding a baby.

When the rear seats are up in normal position there is an extra deep cargo space where they othrwise fold in to. This is great for carrying extra groceries and making sure they don't roll around.

The middle seats can fold down, forward, or come out of the car very easily too, to maximize cargo space. We have easily transported furniture and even mattresses in our van. We had a trailer hitch installed too. The V6 engine had no problems pulling a loaded 6 foot trailer. (I'm sure it could pull something bigger, that's just what we have).

Let's not forget that this car has a 5 star crash test rating.

Downsides? Sometimes, especially after a cold night, the side doors stick and you really have to pull to get them open. They also don't retain their value as well as some.

Our model didn't come with built in dvd players, though I think that is an option. And there is not built in navigation. But we solve both of those problems with portable dvd players and our tomtom. It is cheaper to do it that way than have them come built in anyway.

As for price, the value for this car can't be beat. A brand new one starts at $21,400. So you'll pay $24,000 or so with good features. That's if you buy new.

We got our '07 in '07, used, with about 15,000 miles. Our purchase price was about $15,500. At the same time we looked at other minivans, Dodge, Chrysler, Honda and Toyota for starters.

Any other 06 or 07 that we looked at was about $19-23,000, even used. Other minivans in the $15-16,000 range were at least 4 years old with 60,000 miles or more.

We felt like we were getting a great deal with an almost new car for the same price as others that were much older.

We have had almost a year to drive and enjoy it. While it doesn't have many bells and whistles, it is a great family car, gets decent gas mileage, runs great, and was a great value. I love it.