Note to Mods: Sorry if this is in the wrong section. Feel free to move as needed.

Yesterday was somewhat interesting for me. I went out in the morning to do some basic grocery shopping with my mom. On the way, I passed a Nissan dealer (Arlington Nissan in Buffalo Grove, IL) and figured I'd test drive a Versa, a Rogue, and possibly an Altima (no intentions of buying). I was just looking around because my current (err...previous) car was a 1999 Altima GXE and quite frankly, after 8 years in the family it needed to be replaced. I was happy with the Altima so Nissan was on my list of brands to consider (among them: Hyundai , Subaru and Honda).

Anyway, first things first, we test drove a Versa SL hatch which was nicely loaded but pushed the sticker of $18k. Isn't the base price around $14k? No way were we gonna pay $20k for a $14k car. Long story short, we got the price down to $16.5k. Quite reasonable I thought. At that point I told my mom to look at the Rogue, sure it will cost a few $$$ more but its a much more substantial car. We told the dealer we wanted a 2WD SL in silver of gray. He pulled up a Gotham Gray S. We drove it anyway because we figured there should be no difference in how it drives. Seemed nice. Then we told him (again) we wanted to look at the SL. He pulled up an SL with a sticker of $2k more (as expected) but it seemed pretty much like the same car (less alloys, tinted windows, and roof rack). Nice things yes, but not $2k worth of nice. Because we liked the idea of the intelligent key fob on the versa, we wanted the same on the rogue and told him to track one down. Of course, it comes only as a part of the AWD Premium Package. Quite frankly, pushing almost $25k for the SL AWD Premium just to get a few features we actually wanted (bose sound, bluetooth, intelligent key).....didn't seem worth the $5k and even more features we didn't really want/need.

At the end of the day we got the gotham gray S + mats, rear bumper guard and mud flaps for $18.5 + TTL. Pretty gnarlly car. Haven't had that much time to drive it yet (pretty much only doing the grocery shopping i was gonna do yesterday today).

Still trying to figure out some minor details that I overlooked at the dealer. Seems the cargo cover does not come with the S, so i bought one on ebay for $200 delivered. Still trying to figure out some kind of cargo mat/organizer deal going on. For now I have a decent size rubbermaid box in the back to contain grocery bags and other cargo that will have the tendency to roll around or spill. Kinda surprised that cargo mats (be it ebay or WeatherTech run at near $100). Some cosmetic (well...practical too i suppose) featured i'd like to have would be the alloys (...so like $1k for that...if i ever. Altima had hubcaps and they worked alright) and the fog lights (granted not that much fog in chicago very often...but whatever).

Sorry for lack of pics. Then again...not much to see here, just a stock gray S.

Anyway, I should really get back to writing a paper thats due tomorrow. Midterms week makes me

all of them do not come with the pop up cargo organizer?

Sadly only the SL with Premium packages have the foldable cargo organizer.

hey congratz and enjoy the ride! I live in niles so were like neighbors