Looking for another car.
It was not a good day to drive around the suburbs looking at car yards. Ken has ended up quite sunburnt, and having a few breathing problems. He has been warned by all his doctors (heart/lung/GP) that he should avoid being outdoors in extreme weather conditions, i.e. very cold, very hot or very windy..and residual bushfire smoke doesn't help either. I took a very large-brimmed straw hat, and rammed it on my head whenever we left the car, so I didn't get burnt or headachy.
So why did we do it? And both days - yesterday and today. My little car (Holden Barina) is now 21 years old. I bought it when it was about 8 years old, and in spite of some pretty rough treatment by yours truly (such as changing from 4th gear into reverse at 100 kph on a freeway), it has never let me down. But now it is starting to make strange noises and worrying rattles, so considering that without a reliable and roadworthy car I don't have a job, we have decided it is time to replace it.
I am not in the market for a NEW car, for two reasons. Firstly, we couldn't afford one - a new Barina would set me back upward of $16,000. But Ken insists that I get one less than 5 years old, and a decent one will still be around $10,000. Secondly, I couldn't stand the stress of driving around in a perfect car, to have someone bump into me in a carpark or elsewhere and leave dings on it. I would never hear the end of it from Ken. So as I said to him when I bought my first Barina, if I buy something that already has a few marks, I won't feel so bad once it gets a few more, and he might not notice them anyway. He always does though :-(
So off we went yesterday, over to the car yards west of where we live. Today, we travelled in the opposite direction. We found half a dozen possibilities, all of which we disagreed over. You see, I look for different things in a car, than what Ken does. When I found the Barina all those years ago, I said "Oh what a pretty blue!" and Ken said "You're not buying a car because it's blue" to which I replied "Yes I am! This is just what I want". So again, this weekend I inspected all the blue cars in the size and price range I was interested in. Ken found silver cars, black cars, red cars, all the right size and price range, but I didn't want to know. I had a sit in a few of them, and narrowed down the field to the cars in which I could see over the dashboard - another Barina, and a Hyundai Getz. Both very pretty shades of blue! The dealers of course tried their best to sell me their cars on the spot, but I just laughed. We'll be looking around for a few more weekends, I think. If I am going to spend ten grand on a car, I have to be 100% sure it is the right one.
So why did we do it? And both days - yesterday and today. My little car (Holden Barina) is now 21 years old. I bought it when it was about 8 years old, and in spite of some pretty rough treatment by yours truly (such as changing from 4th gear into reverse at 100 kph on a freeway), it has never let me down. But now it is starting to make strange noises and worrying rattles, so considering that without a reliable and roadworthy car I don't have a job, we have decided it is time to replace it.
I am not in the market for a NEW car, for two reasons. Firstly, we couldn't afford one - a new Barina would set me back upward of $16,000. But Ken insists that I get one less than 5 years old, and a decent one will still be around $10,000. Secondly, I couldn't stand the stress of driving around in a perfect car, to have someone bump into me in a carpark or elsewhere and leave dings on it. I would never hear the end of it from Ken. So as I said to him when I bought my first Barina, if I buy something that already has a few marks, I won't feel so bad once it gets a few more, and he might not notice them anyway. He always does though :-(
So off we went yesterday, over to the car yards west of where we live. Today, we travelled in the opposite direction. We found half a dozen possibilities, all of which we disagreed over. You see, I look for different things in a car, than what Ken does. When I found the Barina all those years ago, I said "Oh what a pretty blue!" and Ken said "You're not buying a car because it's blue" to which I replied "Yes I am! This is just what I want". So again, this weekend I inspected all the blue cars in the size and price range I was interested in. Ken found silver cars, black cars, red cars, all the right size and price range, but I didn't want to know. I had a sit in a few of them, and narrowed down the field to the cars in which I could see over the dashboard - another Barina, and a Hyundai Getz. Both very pretty shades of blue! The dealers of course tried their best to sell me their cars on the spot, but I just laughed. We'll be looking around for a few more weekends, I think. If I am going to spend ten grand on a car, I have to be 100% sure it is the right one.
posted by Gina E. | 10:49 pm
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