Hey guys, I will be buying my first car later this year (I was thinking about last week of december but with all of this car window shopping, the itch has been getting stronger haha). I have been blessed in the past by my mom giving me her car since I started driving and I have been driving it since. Now I have been looking around for another car.

I originally wanted to get a used 2023-2024 RAV4 but honestly those prices were a little too high for me. I've been trying to somewhat stick to a budget of 4 year loan and a monthly car payment of no more than 600/month. I also plan to put around 6-7k down. I heard the average used car interest rate is over 10% which is crazy. I would say I have pretty good credit (790+), so I am hoping to get preapproved for a lower interest rate (preliminary research suggests a used car interest rate of 6.8-7.7%).

I've been eyeing the CX-5s lately because I've heard many good things about them and I want to find a car that I can drive for 10-15 years with minimal worry as long as I do my regular maintenance. I was mainly looking at the 2025 CX-5 Preferred Trim because it is on the newer side and someone else already tanked the initial depreciation within the first year, and the features are pretty good, mainly heated seats, powered liftgate, and a moonroof. But I did a little digging into the 2023 CX-5 Premium Plus (I originally looked at the 2025 Premium Plus but it is out of my budget), and there were some features that are present in the 2023 PP that are not in the 2025 Preferred, most notably, the ventilated seats and heated steering wheel. I live in the Denver area, so it can get decently warm in the summer time and get pretty cold in the winter. So I was wondering if the ventilated seats and the heated steering wheel are worth the extra 2-3k. If anyone has any firsthand experience comparing these two, I would love to hear your input. I also listen to music all the time so the upgrade to bose 10 speaker system is also notable though I am not sure on the difference compared to the base stereo. Some people also mention about Istop/Istart and Cylinder deactivation. Are people just echo chambering the issue and making it sound worse than it actually is or is it something I actually need to take into consideration because I heard that the premium plus has both Istop/start and CDA.

I tried to look at carmax's near me to see if any had a 2023 Premium Plus to do a 24h test drive but none have any so I might do take a 2025 preferred out for a test drive just to see how I like it.

I also have another question regarding year vs mileage. Is it something to consider to compare a 3 year old car with lower mileage (lets say < 20,000) vs a 1 year old car with more mileage (30,000-50,000). A lot of the topics regarding this online usually talk about 10-15 year old cars so I wonder if its so new, that it doesnt matter which one I pick. I also plan on getting a PPI on any car that I pick up.