That doesn't make the process any more fun, though. I hate car shopping. I hate appliance shopping. I hate furniture shopping. I hate home improvement shopping. I hate home shopping. Any big ticket item like this is not fun for me. And after how the first half of our test driving excursion went, Katie told me she completely understood my apathy.

We went to one Hyundai dealership and told the guy the monthly payment range we were hoping to stay within and then told him we were interested in test driving the new Sonata and the new Elantra. He brought out a nearly four-year-old Sonata and a new Elantra. He basically refused to discuss the new Sonata after that point despite the fact that the Elantra he was showing us was more expensive than the low-end Sonata. Then he proceeded to point out all the cool bells and whistles of the Sonata during the test drive despite the fact that it was only newer than my Sonata by two years and had exactly the same features save for heated seats and a renamed button on the radio. He knew we had a 2011 Sonata. And we told him that every time he pointed out a "highlight feature." "This car has x and y!" he'd say. "So does ours," we'd say.

Then we told him what we had as a down payment and that we'd like to see what a monthly payment would be for both 60- and 72-month financing plans (I had no intention of going with six years, but I wanted to see). He came back with what our monthly payments would be if we financed for 36 months with double the dollar amount down.

Ummm... how is that anything at all like what we were asking of him? Katie was done. She started to walk out when the sales manager stopped me and proceeded to try to negotiate a really good payment plan including the terms that we had wanted and he managed to get it down to the payment range we had hoped for. That's great, but we were only there to test drive. We both knew we weren't signing on the dotted line yet. That is going to come in the next couple weeks. But leave it to a sales manager to try to force you to sign.

I told him we weren't ready and walked out. We're never going back to this dealership again. I had shopped there five years ago for my Sonata and had the same experience. I was hoping there would have been some change in five years. There had not.

Then we went to the dealership from whom we did buy my Sonata. The salesman listened to us. He brought out the cars we asked to test drive. He was very calm and conversational. Truly a nice kid. He understood we weren't ready at that moment to buy a car and didn't play hardball. The sales manager came out and described what the deals were and that they were good for the remainder of the month and he was unsure what would be coming in May but that it was up to us to decide if we wanted this deal by the end of the month or play the game and see what May would bring.

It was a complete 180. Katie and I left feeling good. We knew they heard us and responded accordingly. And, better yet, we knew this dealership (and salesman) would get the sale from us. When we're ready.

Oh, and it's definitely a Sonata for us. No question. We tried the Elantra and, while I was surprised how much roomier it was than I was expecting, it wasn't quite nice enough for us to be 100% comfortable for the many road trips we plan to take in it. And some of the interior design work was kinda strange. Different materials than the Sonata that felt cheap, if you know what I mean.