March 11, 2010
The spending has begun. Or will have begun .. when I find the right car to spend it on. Well, as far as my bank is concerned, the money’s out the door. It’s time to replace my parents’ car. Or my dad’s, rather, since he’s the only one capable of driving now.
I withdrew a great stack of cash in hopes that the first used car I looked at would be
A) in great shape,
B) a bargain,
C) failing a bargain, at least a good price within Kelly Blue Book and Edmund’s TMV ranges.
D) Failing that, I was heading to the nearest or best comic shop to make it rain! Just … kidding ….
It wasn’t highly likely, but I wanted the cash ready to go if I really truly hit the jackpot first time out. It didn’t happen, so we’re back to the drawing board. As a novice used car buyer, I’ve enlisted the aid of two friends experienced both in buying used cars and buying successfully from Craigslist.
It’s amazing how awfully skimpy the majority of listings on Craigslist are, I often wonder if those people still manage to unload their cars or if they’re just skipped over in favor of a meatier entry?
I’m looking for a used sedan or similar vehicle with good gas mileage, reliable engineering, solid specs (nothing flashy), up to ten years old, sale by private owner (preferably first or second owners), low mileage (as low as you can reasonably get), as close to $5000 as possible. From the looks of things, most cars in that price range are salvage titles which aren’t necessarily dealbreakers, but I am hoping for a clean title. It’d be great if the car was dog friendly (easy to clean/control dog furrage, comfortable for a medium-large dog).
So far, we’ve met with a guy who absolutely refused to budge more than $100 on his listed sale price of $7900 on the basis of his recent $2000 investment in the car maintenance. Never mind that the “upgrades” were necessary to bring it up to the “Excellent” condition category of KBB in the first place, which was only $5500. He was determined to recoup his out of pocket costs and wouldn’t even let us test drive unless we agreed to the price.
Another guy sounded like he was barely out of his teens, knew nothing about the maintenance records, and was pretty sure it might have had some fender damage but couldn’t swear to it. Apparently his dad held all that information. In any case, I think that one’s a salvage so I’d have to check that more closely and verify that any damage was cosmetic or not structural.
The last two options on the list had cars with decent mileage for the age of the cars, but weren’t available for inspection until the end of the week. We’ll see if any of those pan out or if we find better listings as we go along.
My goal is to get this done before the end of the month so I can move on with my life!
_______________________
Edit: Right now, I can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing to have connections with folks at car manufacturers. They can give you incredible rundowns on the cars they’d recommend or warn you from, but then that causes decision paralysis. Evidently, this isn’t an official recall yet, but 04-07 Accords have an issue with unpredictable and expensive (when it happens) transmission failures. Just because it’s not officially recalled doesn’t mean that it’s not a potential problem, nor does it mean that it’s widespread enough that I could calculate the risk we’re taking looking at them. But it’s frustrating as all get out.
December 2, 2009
Here’s a What would you have done? scenario.
I got a call from my girlfriend recently. She and her husband were looking at cars to replace both their beater car and the truck he’d crashed into a telephone pole one icy night, several months ago. He was fine, thank goodness, but their car was most decidedly not.
I worry about their finances as she’s described them to me. He’s been unemployed on and off for months, though always diligently hunting and trying to bring home income one way or another. He wasn’t too proud to go back to delivering pizzas while training for his paramedic license, trying out for the sheriff’s department, and basically beating every bush possible. She’s gone back to a desk job even though she hates it and she’s not physically a desk job kind of gal – it knocks her back a-kilter something fierce. But she deals, as well.
It took several weeks but they found their “deal”: a 2000 4-door sedan for $8,000. It seemed like a great price if they could get decent financing in her name. [He’d declared bankruptcy a year ago, and so they won’t be putting anything in his name for a while.] With a mid 700s credit score, I wasn’t terribly concerned about their chances.
Except the shady dealership offered them 15% APR! And then “gave” them a “discount” to make up for the fact that as they were signing the papers, the shady salesman revealed that the car had been in an accident that caused structural damage.
/headdesk/
At that point I really wanted to
a) beg them to walk away;
b) beg them to consider alternate financing options, and find another car that didn’t have structural damage;
c) beg them to walk away, consider better financing options, and find another car that didn’t have structural damage.
She told me, in the crickets-chirping silence as I debated the above options, that her brother in law the mechanic had checked the car and deemed it driveable, but I still felt uncomfortable with their decision to proceed with the sale.
Am I paranoid? What would you have done?
May 11, 2009
I love my current ride, which I did buy new, but I just don’t see myself doing that again. New cars are great but they mostly smell like big fat monthly payments, insane insurance premiums, and freaking out over every ding and dent. My car’s six years old and I still get mad every time I discover a new scratch. My nerves just can’t take this.
I discovered three new dents in the driver’s side door last weekend and my blood’s still boiling.
The older I get, the more I feel like I’d be happy with an older beater car, something about 10 or 15 years old with just basic amenities like heat, a/c, working locks and windows. Not just happy, happier. Happier that I can worry less about the car being stolen, broken into (I leave nothing of value in there), or vandalized. I could be totally wrong about that last, because if you’re parking in an iffy area, I doubt it matters what you drive. But again, if it were an old, properly functioning vehicle, that wasn’t worth too much, it probably wouldn’t matter as much as a $23k car, right?
Am I fooling myself, though? I’ve only ever driven a real beater car for a short time back in college when I was between cars and someone had gifted my brother a really old two-door Toyota circa 1980.
Blame it on a hazy memory, but it wasn’t that bad. I do hate manual windows because I can’t reach across the car and roll down the passenger side window, but also because my hands are the first to go when I’m having a bout with the disease. Then again, it’s not like I was stuck with it.
Perhaps I’m more willing to wear [a little of] my money than drive it. This is all hypothetical anyway. She’s on a 20-year contract, aka: I’m driving her until the wheels fall off, replacing them, and driving her some more. 🙂
March 4, 2009
Clearing up the insurance details:
Auto insurance refunds:
$115, check received
$153, check requested
Policy Premium increase:
$142, lovely
Still to be determined:
Car payout, less the $500 deductible, less any assessed decrease in value, less the remaining loan amount.
The check should be arriving sometime this week, and we can begin car hunting in earnest. Sharing is caring, but sharing a car all the time makes for crazy.
February 27, 2009
My worlds of Twitter and blog haven’t converged, though it may seem to have done so in my mind, so I’m posting thanks to a reminder from SFOrdinaryGirl about my recent car rental.
El papa forgot to mention that he needed a car all day on Saturday until Friday night. Yar! I was expecting some car rental fees over the weekends since they can just use my car during the week, but we don’t share as well if I want to do anything but sit at home 7 days a week. With the pressure to job hunt, I’ve been doing that anyway, but I needed my car last weekend. So with about 12 hours notice, I had to get my bargain hunter on and try to find a cheap rental for the following morning.
My usual go-tos, Enterprise, Dollar, and Budget were all out because I required a one-day rental, and all their local offices were closed on Sundays. [Can I just say? That made me downright grumpy. How can you be a business that involves time-based charges and not be open 7 days a week? How can you be closed to rentals or returns on Sunday? GAH. It’s a little bit like being charged in a hotel or a hospital where you have to check out … except there’s one day of the week you can’t! Ok, enough ranting.]
Weekend rentals at Enterprise are usually 50% off, so the car would have cost about $70-ish Friday through Sunday.
Except 1) you can’t return cars on Sunday and 2) it was Friday night and far too late to get a weekend rental.
On the phone with BFF, she suggested that I use her AAA discount to help defray the costs, and while poking around the internets together, she suggested Hertz. Normally, I avoid Hertz like the credit-card charging plague they are, but looked at their site anyway. I mean, I was striking out everywhere else!
And lo: the skies opened and brought me the Hertz One Weekend Day FREE rental deal. No kidding, they quoted me $13.99 in taxes and airport location rental fees for an economy car.
I searched for a catch, an obligation, a must-do and came up empty. They were serious about this “Buy None Get 1 Free” deal.
With no little amount of doubt and perturbation, the reservation was made. The next morning, other than a 45 minute wait in line thanks to a customer in front of me having difficulties with her reservation, the rental was simple. “You have a free day, sign on the line, you have an additional driver, sign on the line, go get your car!”
Huh. Well, no complications except they gave us a frickin’ Toyota Prius and I had no clue how to turn it on. Power button? What? This is a for-real car, right?
Driving difficulties aside, the rental ended up being less than they quoted me, and they didn’t even charge for my dad as an additional driver. (Normally a $10 fee. The agent didn’t even mention the fee or the discount.) And it took me 36 hours before I asked myself, why did I even do that? Why didn’t I just let him rent it in his name? It’s not like I wouldn’t have paid anyway. The whole ten bucks.
The promotion runs through the end of March, and is good once a month so if you had actual need for a rental this month and next, you could get your free day twice. You have this last weekend to get it in, though.
Caveat: I did not take any extras like the insurance, GPS or any other add-ons. The additional driver would normally cost you, I assume that waiting patiently for nearly an hour was my free pass. And I didn’t even pay for gas because the 70 miles driven didn’t put a dent in the gas tank.
Caveat Emptor: I’m not getting paid to promote Hertz in any way – I’m just happy about the deal and wanted to share.
February 13, 2009
It just occurred to me that the silver lining to the car thing? Is that it eliminates the car payment, due to end in August, right now. The total amount deducted from the insurance settlement is a blow, as long as we get a used vehicle for less than $5000 – I’m willing to kick in a few hundred, up to a thousand – it increases their cash flow.
Now I can reproject the 09 family budget. Happy Friday?
Oh, and I guess I won’t be paying for car insurance in the meantime, either.
Am I numb because I’ve balanced out negative thoughts with positivity this week? Or is it because … well … it figures??
The car is totaled. It will cost more to fix than the book value. After the deductible, after they cut the check, after the car is paid off, we’ll have a bit more than $3000 in cash. Instead of a working family sedan.
Now we need to car hunt.
I’d curse but I just don’t have it in me.
