If you're growing tired of this endless car story, rest assured that I'm almost done. If you're really tired of it just skip the next post or two. What can I say; car buying is not something I do every day.
Okay, back to the story, we went o Michael's Toyota after striking out at a number of other places. Our cheerful, purple-clad saleslady had two possibilities in my price range. In fact, she did an elaborate interview and search thing that resulted in the two cars I'd identified online. One was an '00 Honda Civic with 62k, and the other was an '02 Toyota Corolla with 42k. On that level this Corolla seems the obvious choice. However, adding difficulty to the decision was the fact that the Honda was an automatic (a feature I wanted) and had a smaller price tag. We decided to take them both for a test drive.
The Corolla reminded me strongly of the Tercel I used to have. It is a stripped-down model down to the manual windows and the cassette deck. However, the driving experience is decent with tight steering, peppy engine response (at reasonable speeds anyway), and responsive brakes. The turning radius is good, and the clutch does not drive me crazy (I have a thing about clutches), and the visibility is okay. Over all, it's a good little car without many extra bells or whistles.
The Honda had many more "features" such as power windows and locks, a cd player, and an automatic transmission. Perhaps because the car is older it also had a much noisier more rattled ride, and the brakes were not as crisp. You just can't beat that Honda steering though. There was a slight shimmy at all speeds. The engine was also less peppy (partly because if the automatic of course), and it had annoying high whine when going up hills. In hindsight the choice seems obvious, but at the time it was a real struggle to decide which was the better deal. In the end, the warranty left on the Corolla sealed the choice.
Once I'd decided, it was time to argue about the trade-in value of the RX-7. This part was not fun. The salesman (oh yeah, our purple lady was, of course, replaced by a tough guy) tried at first to offer $1600 for my little blue streak. I was horrified, and told him so in no uncertain terms. After some finagling he agreed to double the price. I was still not happy about this, but I was willing to accept. The price of the Corolla also came down a bit, so I was feeling at least okay about the whole deal.
Lastly, we had to go to the back and finish up with "the financing guy." Why him when I don't need financing? Good question. He spent some time trying to sell me extra warranty coverage. I sincerely hope that M will blog about this because he will have a better memory for the tactics used. The man spent quite a bit of time showing us an extended math problem about why warranties on new cars are stupid, but warranties on used cars are smart. He also tried to tell me that Toyotas are not as reliable as they used to be (was the saleslady lying then?). Finally, he tried to get me to buy a glass-etching service designed to protect against theft. Did you know that 85% of car thefts happen in King County? (Yeah, and about 85% of the people do too) It was very helpful to have M sitting next to me. Every once in a while I would glance over at his face. He had incredulity written all over him, so I knew I wasn't wrong to resist. Finally, I wrote one of the biggest checks of my life, and we were all finished.
Now I am the proud new owner of a Toyota Corolla. It isn't glamorous, but it is safe and reliable. I took it to my mechanic for inspection, and he said that it needed new windshield wipers and nothing else. It was hard getting rid of the RX-7, but in the end it really had to be done. The best part is that I own the car outright, and I didn't need a co-signer to do it.
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