Car Facts

We shared a car for a year and a half, also known as eighteen long months. More accurately, the last six months were long. It wasn’t to make a statement, although it did. It wasn’t to go green, although we did. It wasn’t to make me end up feeling as though I had less freedom than the average American teenager, although it did. It was that it took that long to get over the trauma of the bug.

The “new” Beetle could not have been classified as a lemon. It was much more evil and insidious. The car was demented, haunted. We ended up really hating it. When we saw people driving their cute, little Beetles around with the adorable daisies on the dashboard, we hated them. Our Beetle was broken.

There was always a problem with the electrical system. When Allie plugged in her iPod it winked out yet again. The window opening mechanism broke five times. The sunroof, which was installed aftermarket, leaked. No one would work on it. Finally, we found matching, black duct tape to seal the leak. The lock on the trunk broke so it could not be opened. The latch on the glove box broke which caused the door to pop open, which caused the battery to be drained by the light. We tried to use the duct tape to keep it closed. Even the duct tape didn’t hold. Finally, Eric got his drill and screwed the damn thing shut. The interior smelled like mildew and dog and dirty feet. It smelled like mildew because the sunroof leaked. It smelled like dog because of the dog. I don’t know why it smelled like dirty feet. Perhaps because of the tennis bag.

Unfortunately, and I happen to know from personal experience, Beetles, like Audis, are very close to the ground. When I took the Beetle to look at property Eric warned me about steep driveways. Oops. I guess that one was a little too steep. I called him at work to tell him that I’d crunched the front of the car - the grille was cracked and one fog light was dangling. He was very nice about it which I appreciated.

We limped along with the Beetle until it refused to hold a charge. It wasn’t solved by replacing the battery. It was some sort of electrical issue, of course. We bought a battery trickle feed machine and kept the car in the driveway plugged into the machine until we needed to go somewhere. Talk about shanty Irish. The trickle feed came in handy later when our driveway became the orphanage for the city dwelling twenty somethings, whose exotic vacations lasted so long their batteries inevitably died. After a while we stopped using the Beetle and didn’t want to invest anymore time, money or effort into it. One day I suggested selling the bug and Eric readily agreed.

I used the same philosophy in the Craig’s list ad that I learned in real estate. Disclose everything. A long time ago another agent told me that if you point out how bad a property is, people will want it. If you tell them it’s falling down and made of egg cartons they will buy it assuming it’s properly priced. If you try to make a house seem better than it is, buyers will pick it apart mercilessly. They may purchase it, but then feel a little disgruntled down the road. Read: lawsuit.
I started my ad out by saying: “Broken Beetle For Sale”. I finished by saying only mechanics need apply. A mechanic bought it so he could fix it up for his wife. The poor woman. He paid less than $2,000 dollars. He was happy - not as happy as we were to get rid of it, but I felt a little bad for the wife.

Fast forward to the day last spring when we decided it was time to purchase another vehicle. What to buy? We got intrigued by Mini Coopers. So cute. The first one we looked at was a red chili pepper. It drove great and was clean as can be but there was something fishy with the ownership. There was no registration sticker and vague mentions of the lien holder. Never mind. A month or two later we looked at another Mini. This baby was bad news. The suspension was clapped - the whole car rattled. Oddly enough, it didn’t have a license plate. The supposed owner mumbled some story about how it had never been mailed by the dealer. Next.

I could feel an impulse buy mounting. The one-car situation was making me crazy and by this time Allie was home for the summer needing transportation to work. We cobbled together an arrangement with Lana so we had four people in two different domiciles sharing two cars, all with different schedules. Talk about coordination. The pressure was on. I like Lana’s little Honda a lot so I went to the Honda dealer and, against Eric’s advice, bought the first car I saw. It was a l990 Prelude with over a hundred thousand miles. When I went back with Lana to pick it up they thought I was buying the car for her. I explained that she had a brand new Honda she’d bought there with Cash for Clunkers a while back. This car was our second car. The guys at the dealership didn’t really get it. Who could blame them?

Excited to have new wheels, I grabbed Allie and we hit the road for a test drive. When we got to the wine country, which is about an hour away, I turned off the engine. Allie pointed out that the car smelled like the old Jeep did when it was burning oil. The interior smelled like cigarette smoke. I knew I’d made a huge mistake. What a piece of crap. Somewhere, in the flurry of all the papers I’d signed, I remembered something about a two day return policy that I’d purchased on the Prelude. I called the dealer and told him I was having seconds thoughts. I suggested he hold my check. Disgruntled about losing a sale, he tried to argue with me. I told him I’d get back to him. The next day Lucy came over and we went for a spin. There was a strange sound. She begged me to take it back. Just as we passed a gorgeous Honda with a “For Sale” sign, my phone rang. It was the salesman from the dealership. He got a little testy about whether I was planning to return the Prelude. The answer was yes. I had just seen my new car.

I’d had buyer’s remorse with the Lexus, but Eric wouldn’t let me back out of that deal. It’s an excellent vehicle despite the fact that I don’t really like driving it. We’ve heard the Lexus described as being as exciting as sitting in a tub of library paste reading a Jane Austen novel. It’s an old lady/old man car. We bought it from the heirs of an old woman who had died. It was a great deal and practically new, but I still think it smells like Depends when you use the seat cooler.

Thank God, returning the Prelude was simple. Because I had called so soon and they hadn’t processed my check, the finance guy was nice enough to waive the $500 restocking fee. Buying the Civic was not so simple. We met the “owner” on Saturday morning of July 4th weekend. I recognized him from the community. His kids played sports on the same teams as mine. He owns a thriving company. We took the car for a little drive and decided it was exactly what I wanted. Very high end model, practically new, with all the bells and whistles like leather and GPS. During the negotiations the “owner” explained that it was actually his son’s car and his son was living in New York City.

We went back and forth a bit on price. The guy was arrogant as hell. He kept telling me how things would be done - where and when to meet. I agreed and he left town without calling me to change the arrangements. Really irritated, I called him and we rescheduled for Tuesday morning after the holiday weekend. I’d spent only fifteen minutes looking at the car, but ten phone calls making arrangements to get it. Tuesday morning arrived and surprise, surprise, Mr. Wonderful was running late. And guess what? He couldn’t find the title. Of course he couldn’t. Why should he be any different from the other two people trying to sell cars they didn’t really own? What is with these people? I can’t imagine trying to sell a car that doesn’t belong to me.

After a bit of due diligence on the DMV website, the “owner” was convinced he had all the paperwork he needed to complete the transaction. I met him at the bank with the cashier’s check. He turned over the paperwork and a single key to the car. Great. One key - just like my last two cars. He told me he would look around at home and get it to me. Happy to be away from him, I went to get in my new car. It was delivered dirty with a fair amount of dog hair. Annoyed, I went straight to the car wash.

Buyer’s remorse bubbled up but I smacked it down. The car was fine. All I had to do was go register it. It only took three hours and cost me eighteen hundred dollars, including $l8.00 to replace the lost title. After I forked over the money, they told me the “owner” hadn’t signed a mandatory form and the process was incomplete. By this time I was getting really cranky. I’d missed my lunch and my recently broken toe was throbbing. I called my favorite man in the world and told him we needed to talk. I may have been a bit grumpy about the dirty car and the fact that I’d failed to notice when we were negotiating price that the year’s registration was only days from expiring. I told him I wanted to be reimbursed for the $l8.00. His exact words were, “I’m not going to argue over eighteen dollars, but I don’t know that I’m going to pay you.”

The signed forms came back to me a few days later. No check for eighteen bucks. What a jerk. I calmed down about it until I heard a strange sound which turned out to be the rear brakes needing to be replaced. I also needed four new tires. I don’t mind spending the $750 bucks on tires and brakes. I’ve got a good car. I do mind the eighteen dollars.