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Entry tags:
Car Saga
The Story So Far
Eleven years ago a bought a 1996 Saturn SC2. This made me happy. I bought it a year old, partly because 1996 was the last year that Saturns were small; after that they got bigger. I like my cars small and just a little sporty.
Three years ago I replaced the stock cassette deck in the Saturn with an MP3-CD player. This made me even happier.
Bam!
Five weeks ago, on a night with blowing snow and all the sane people were going slow, a 22-year-old crashed into me at high speed on I-70. The car was basically undrivable until I cut some plastic away from the tire, making it barely drivable. This made me annoyed.
Oh, and this crash happened the night before my birthday, therefore the night before I had to go renew my license plates and driver's license. With a barely-drivable car. This made me frustrated.
(As a small bonus annoyance, my license plate was mangled in the crash, and needed to be replaced, and I liked the mid-90s Ohio license plates better than the current ones.)
After weeks of deliberation, the insurance companies decided that (a) fixing it would cost close to $3000, and (b) my beloved car had barely been worth $3000 before the crash. Thus, total loss, and thus, I had to find another car. This made me extremely unhappy.
Searching
In fact, the more I looked, the more unhappy and stressed-out I became. Not only are most recent cars bigger than my Saturn, but people thought I was strange when I said that the "small" car they wanted to sell me was too big. (I actually made a spreadsheet to compare the dimensions and wheelbase of candidate models with my Saturn!) Then there were the cars that were great except for being too expensive. Or the ones that were perfect except for having a manual transmission. Or the ones that felt like way too much of a step down from the Saturn, or the ones that would probably fall apart in a year. Or the ones that were just right... except for being trashed inside by some smoker who couldn't even keep the driver's seat intact.
Found!
I did realize that I had to be willing to pay a bit more than I'd initially intended, which opened things to the realm of the possible. But I was still pretty stressed out over the whole thing. Then I decided to go to a series of dealers who'd advertised cars that seemed promising, first wasting the time of some but finally coming to this 2000 Acura Integra:
It feels much like my Saturn, with some bonuses (hatchback, sunroof) and some negatives (not as many places to stash things when I'm driving). It felt like I'd finally found the car I wanted.... which meant I did horribly with the price negotiation. I'm still kicking myself for that, but I'm enjoying the car. Having it lifts a huge weight off my shoulders.
Now I need to replace the stock CD player with my MP3-CD stereo, and I'll be all set. Maybe soon it'll warm up enough to do that.
Eleven years ago a bought a 1996 Saturn SC2. This made me happy. I bought it a year old, partly because 1996 was the last year that Saturns were small; after that they got bigger. I like my cars small and just a little sporty.
Three years ago I replaced the stock cassette deck in the Saturn with an MP3-CD player. This made me even happier.
Bam!
Five weeks ago, on a night with blowing snow and all the sane people were going slow, a 22-year-old crashed into me at high speed on I-70. The car was basically undrivable until I cut some plastic away from the tire, making it barely drivable. This made me annoyed.
Oh, and this crash happened the night before my birthday, therefore the night before I had to go renew my license plates and driver's license. With a barely-drivable car. This made me frustrated.
(As a small bonus annoyance, my license plate was mangled in the crash, and needed to be replaced, and I liked the mid-90s Ohio license plates better than the current ones.)
After weeks of deliberation, the insurance companies decided that (a) fixing it would cost close to $3000, and (b) my beloved car had barely been worth $3000 before the crash. Thus, total loss, and thus, I had to find another car. This made me extremely unhappy.
Searching
In fact, the more I looked, the more unhappy and stressed-out I became. Not only are most recent cars bigger than my Saturn, but people thought I was strange when I said that the "small" car they wanted to sell me was too big. (I actually made a spreadsheet to compare the dimensions and wheelbase of candidate models with my Saturn!) Then there were the cars that were great except for being too expensive. Or the ones that were perfect except for having a manual transmission. Or the ones that felt like way too much of a step down from the Saturn, or the ones that would probably fall apart in a year. Or the ones that were just right... except for being trashed inside by some smoker who couldn't even keep the driver's seat intact.
Found!
I did realize that I had to be willing to pay a bit more than I'd initially intended, which opened things to the realm of the possible. But I was still pretty stressed out over the whole thing. Then I decided to go to a series of dealers who'd advertised cars that seemed promising, first wasting the time of some but finally coming to this 2000 Acura Integra:
It feels much like my Saturn, with some bonuses (hatchback, sunroof) and some negatives (not as many places to stash things when I'm driving). It felt like I'd finally found the car I wanted.... which meant I did horribly with the price negotiation. I'm still kicking myself for that, but I'm enjoying the car. Having it lifts a huge weight off my shoulders.
Now I need to replace the stock CD player with my MP3-CD stereo, and I'll be all set. Maybe soon it'll warm up enough to do that.
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