car shopping in these recessive times

(today i'm grumpy and refuse to capitalize - i apologize to all those i'm making cringe at the moment by not using proper proper english - and to the moderators if they see this and have to correct it.)

recently i've been pricing toyota camrys online and seeing what the different dealerships offer around my area. for a 2005 camry with roughly 30-35000 miles the prices aren't quite as staggering and shocking as i imagined they would be. my partner and i have talked about trading in my car for a camry so that we could save miles on her van and use it to travel the country when we go on vacations. there are great features on these vehicles, i've never heard a toyota owner complain about their vehicle (rather everyone else who's ever owned one and currently doesn't saying that they're going back to toyota once they deal with their current car's issues) and these automobiles truly do last a good, long time. excellent! i can certainly learn to love a car payment with all of these benefits. but why would i want to trade in my 2003 chevy cavalier that only has 44k on it - the miles are low enough that it could last at least 10 more years, it'll be paid off in 1 year and the payments are quite cheap, and it's a good ride - so why? because there's no volume control on the steering wheel! yes, i'm a consumer inclined to purchase something gimmicky, i help keep advertisers and designers employed.

part of me feels quite badly about this, another part rationalizes that i'm a consumer and can do what i darn well want as long as i have the funds, another part of me says that it's still a more economically friendly vehicle as opposed to an suv, and the other part wonders if i'll actually go through with it.

with this recession, however, dealers are doing their best to offer pretty packages to get the vehicles out of their lots. it'll be interesting to see how else this recession effects us.