Step 1 towards a new car happens tomorrow morning: they're coming to pick up the old one at 8 A.M. We'll be $50 richer; yay us. This frees up the spot in the garage so we will then be free to procure a new one, which we want to do sooner than later.

After looking at prices, a new car looks rather more interesting than a used one: the difference in price just doesn't make up for the difference in maintenance and fuel costs on an older car. Subcompacts are probably a bit too small for us, both from a capacity and a safety point of view: if I'm driving to work anything like regularly, that's 50 km per day, most of it highway, and mass matters in a collision. I'm used to driving a refrigerator Volvo station wagon, so I don't really fancy a folded-tinfoil wrapper around a sewing-machine engine. Japanese cars still seem to be the best value for money, in terms of reliability, fuel efficiency, and parts availability and cost, but the Honda Fit seems a bit lightweight.

So here are a couple of questions for those of you who've done this car-buying thing before: where should one end up at the end of negotiations, relative to the MSRP? Also, how much room is there to push back on "shipping and preparation" charges and suchlike? And finally, what "little extras" should I be anticipating being offered, which should I buy, and what should I expect to pay for them?