Used cars

Diane killed her car. Not on purpose, but it is dead. Not quite buried - as we are still waiting for the insurance check - but the totalled it.

We can't be a one car family - just won't work. So we had to shop for another car.

With everything else going on, we can't really afford to take on car payments. We just managed to consolidate all our debt into a second mortgage, we don't want to add more.

So of course, I went to the internet. Not a real pleasant experience, but better than what was to come. I found some on there - one local dealer is very good about putting their cars up. I ignored any without prices - I don't want to deal with that.

Diane looked at a couple of private owners. She knows I'd love to have a convertible some day, so she keeps finding those. I finally tell her to stop looking there - without a garage we will have to be replacing a convertible top every couple of years at least. It is a dream, but not one we can do anything about now.

She does find one car - but our mechanic doesn't like it.

Looking at what is available, I figure we need a little help, so I go to the credit union here at work. That was good - it looks like I have actually managed to repair my credit after so many years. To the point that they release the security deposit on my mastercard, as well as pre-approve me for a small loan - I could have gotten a lot more but don't want the payments.

I talk with people at work about things, and someone mentions they are selling their Toyota. Now we aren't seeing any Hondas or Toyotas in our price range (between 4 and 9K with the loan) - simply because they are too good of cars. So this sounds interesting, but we want to look.

So Friday night, we go out looking. What time to you think car dealers would close on a Friday night? I'm stupid - I assume something like 8 or 9 pm. Lots of stores are open that late - and I figure lots of people would be looking for cars after work on a weekend. Did I say I was stupid? Why would I assume something so . . . so - reasonable. They frackin close at 6. 6pm. On a Friday. They were all closed.

Well we can still look around a bit - so we go to the one that had them on the web. We see most of them - but can do nothing about it. So we go to another dealer.

We went to several. None of them would list prices on the used cars. At all. When I saw that, it just made me feel like there was a big sign over the door saying, "Take a dab of vasoline, grab your ankles, and have a nice day while we screw you over as thouroughly as we can."

I'm not a person to make a fuss, or cause a scene. I won't do it, but I did have an idea that would be fun if I had the guts to do it. Go into one of these places, when it was actually open. Walk around looking at cars, until a salesman comes up. Should be about 3.9843 milliseconds before the slimeball arrives. (I know, I'm being harse. 95% of used car salesmen give the rest a bad name). And when he asks me what I'm interested in, I'd say "Well, I wanted to buy a car. But since there aren't any prices on anything, then it is obvious that you don't have any for sale. Have a nice day!" And leave. My chance to dig at them a little. Won't happen, but I can smile at the thought.

On an aside, we did look at a local import dealer (he had VW's as well as Jaguar's and Porsche's, so we figure we can look). Again no prices on the low end cars. But we did see a big red tag on a Porsche convertible that said $10,000. It looked nice, and I have no idea what year it might be. So I get out to look. Turns out the red tag was $10,000 off! The car was $102,000. Guess not.

Anyway, we are pissed about this, so head home, give my friend from work a call. Pick up his wife's 1998 Camry the next morning to drive it a bit - they are going out of town for the day. Take it to our mechanic - he likes it - though it needs new strut plates or struts. So we negotiate a bit, and later that evening write them a check and get the second key.

The irony is Diane really likes the Camry. Sure it is decked out, but it is a 1998, with 109,000 miles on it. I've offered to let her have the 2003 Van (53K miles) as she needs something reliable for work, but she now wants this one.

So she has a car again. And we didn't need to use the loan after all, which is even better. Now if the insurance would just pay up, but that is another rant.