brenspin

Did any other xB admirers/potential buyers end up buying some other car?

I'd been interested in the xB for the more than 2 or so years since the car magazines started talking about them.

I guess the drawbacks of the xB (105 hp, no standard cruise control, no rebates or discounting) coupled with my desire to benefit from the 1st year depreciation when you buy a 1 year old car were too strong. When I bought my car last month, the xB had only been on sale here in the Midwest for 5 months, so there were no used ones to consider.

For $11,000 I got a 2004 Suzuki Aerio AWD automatic wagon with 11,000 miles. Original sticker about $17,400. 155 hp. The AWD was a big selling point.

So far I get about 22 city/26 highway, so it'd be nice to have the xB's 30 mpg (supposedly), but in 1-1 1/2 years I plan on trading in and may consider an xB again. Maybe Toyota will do a complete about-face and offer a V6 AWD xB by then. :twisted:

SweetDaddyDelicious

That little thing has 155hp? wow, I bet it's actually pretty peppy. In a year and a half you should be able to get almost $7 or $8K for it, but the used XB's won't be much more than that by than anyway.

brenspin

Yeah, the Aerio engine has been upgraded twice since it was introduced in 2002... from 2.0 liter to 2.3 liter w/ 145 hp to 2.3 liter w/ 155 hp. So the engine is pretty close to the 2.4 liter engines in the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4.

It's fairly peppy, but if my Suzuki were actually a Toyota or Honda, I'm sure those companies could've gotten better 0-60 times AND fuel economy out of it.

I couldn't bear the thought of 10.5 sec 0-60 acceleration on the automatic xB. I hadn't owned a car that slow in more than 7 years. To be honest though, I never even test drove the xB. Given that it has a CVT, I probably wouldn't have noticed much of a difference in most circumstances. After all, I'm not the sort who often floors it up to 60 mph anyway.

Ironically, I ended up buying my used Aerio at a Toyota/Scion dealer. My previous car broke down one more time, and I didn't want to be forced to put more money into it, so I had to buy something fast. There was actually a stock auto blue xB ($15000) on the lot which I was considering along with the Aerio. With the $4000 price tag difference staring me in the face (plus the initial depreciation on the brand new xB waiting to happen), I didn't bother to test drive the xB.

Scott17

Does quality or resale value matter to you much?

Reno

sorry to hear about your purchase. i hope you hold on to your Aerio for a LONG time, cuz you will get nothing for it when yo want to trade it in.

We have had one here at our dealership for quite a while and I took it out for a spin and found out that it is quite a POS. I hope you are happy you didn't spend the exta money to get a new car, even with the depreciation of a new car.

my advice to you: hold on to it as long as you can!!! you won't be getting an xB for a long time.....

UnFocused

yeah what ^^^^^^^^He said!!! I looked at them as well, realized that they wont hold value, and quality is in question.......

Ohh, and BTW 0-60 time on the Areo is 9.10, and the quarter mile time is 16.9

compared to the xB's :Im glad i get 35 MPG. 0-60 times are pointless to me! So what, you will get to that stoplight 1 second faster than me.....

UnFocused

Ohh and BTW "initial depreciation " has yet to happen on the xB's, not even on the 04's- according to Kbb.com, values are higher than the original MSRP....

Im not trying to hate on you, but this forum is pro-toyota, so what do you expect?

Sciond

Actually you probably overpaid for the Suzuki.....the resale values sink like a stone based on reliability and quality ratings which date back to the Samurai. On the other hand Totota products do depreciate also but at a slower rate and tend to remain higher than comparable vehicles in their class