The Dark Side

That's the word uttered by a few of my friends already in response to my new car - Mercedes C280.
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The old BMW 528i is gone! No longer am I tied to the brand. It has been 12 years and 3 models - '92 750il, '95 318i, '00 528i. The behaviour of the dealers and several other factors drove me away. The BMW had given me more than its fair share of fun and heartache, but now its gone. For those interested - I came very close to a Nissan Maxima - which was a very interesting car. This CVT thing seemed very cool - it pulled hard off the line and just kept going and going - no shifting - unsure of the reliability factor of a belt-driven transmission. However, at the second instantiation of negotiations wherein they were giving me less than 1/2 blue book for my car they came back to me and stated that the Car Fax showed that I was not the original owner of the car. This quite honestly infuriated me, as I am and the problem is I had to change the registration from PA to NJ when I moved here. I demanded my keys and stormed out.
I went to Mercedes, essentially dragged a salesman up from his desk to sell me a car - took a test drive and bought it. The C230 didn't have enough guts, and although the C280 is a Luxury Sedan instead of a Sport Sedan, it handles well enough - as I am not actually taking the thing to the track. After purchasing the car I went back to the Nissan dealer and spoke to the salesman. "I told you I was buying a car today, and I bought a car today!" It isn't totally tricked out - only a few options above base. One cool thing is the 6-CD changer in the glove box. It plays MP3s from CD-RWs. Since I don't have a huge music collection - I can essentially put everything I have in the car with me. Kind of cool. No satellite radio - I need to determine if I will mount my old unit, or get a new unit. Its definitely faster than my 5, handles a little crisper in the slower turns, but is a little more floaty on lane changes over 70 or so. And so a new adventure begins.