Adulting | #8 - Buy a Car
8. Buy a car - DONE 2/6/16
My first two cars were pretty crappy. The first one I had one of those little Saturns that you see everywhere. The driver's window didn't go down (one of its many quirks), which made for some interesting drive-thru experiences. My second car was a Mitsubishi Galant. It had even more quirks. The inside lights didn't work, you had to use a special move to open the passenger door, there were stains and (most likely) cigarette burns throughout the car, and both side mirrors were glued/screwed in their respective positions. (One of them came off in a car wash!)
This car is also one of the main reasons why we decided to buy a car. We were just getting it changed over to my name and had to do emissions. Southern Utah doesn't require emissions, and because it was in my dad's name, I hadn't needed to do that for the last 2 years. But in doing that, it was discovered that there was something wrong that would cost about $800, minimum, to fix. This joy of a car was barely worth that much, so with the encouragement of my mechanic, we started looking for something else.
Jonathan was more excited about finding a car and did all kinds of awesome research about what would be the safest, the best value, etc. He got it down to a Hyundai Elantra at Carmax, and while I wasn't all on board, I was willing to test drive it. He found the perfect balance between newness of car, price, and
mileage. Any newer and it was way more expensive, and any older and it
was barely cheaper. We both ended up loving it! We went test drove another car somewhere else before deciding, but they barely acknowledged us and we weren't very impressed.
We really liked our experience at Carmax, because we didn't have to worry about trying to haggle with pricing...we would both suck at that. They were super nice and easy to work with too. We were also able to trade in my car, which helped with the down payment :) We also had a crazy experience where they needed my dad to sign some papers for the trade-in. Luckily they were in town for the weekend and could come take care of it.
Then just like that, we had a fancy new car. We were adults! And now, on the nearly one year anniversary of buying our car, I can definitely say it was a good purchase. We're still adults! haha :)
My first two cars were pretty crappy. The first one I had one of those little Saturns that you see everywhere. The driver's window didn't go down (one of its many quirks), which made for some interesting drive-thru experiences. My second car was a Mitsubishi Galant. It had even more quirks. The inside lights didn't work, you had to use a special move to open the passenger door, there were stains and (most likely) cigarette burns throughout the car, and both side mirrors were glued/screwed in their respective positions. (One of them came off in a car wash!)
The (back of the) Saturn and the (wedding trashed) Galant
Jonathan was more excited about finding a car and did all kinds of awesome research about what would be the safest, the best value, etc. He got it down to a Hyundai Elantra at Carmax, and while I wasn't all on board, I was willing to test drive it. He found the perfect balance between newness of car, price, and
mileage. Any newer and it was way more expensive, and any older and it
was barely cheaper. We both ended up loving it! We went test drove another car somewhere else before deciding, but they barely acknowledged us and we weren't very impressed.We really liked our experience at Carmax, because we didn't have to worry about trying to haggle with pricing...we would both suck at that. They were super nice and easy to work with too. We were also able to trade in my car, which helped with the down payment :) We also had a crazy experience where they needed my dad to sign some papers for the trade-in. Luckily they were in town for the weekend and could come take care of it.
Then just like that, we had a fancy new car. We were adults! And now, on the nearly one year anniversary of buying our car, I can definitely say it was a good purchase. We're still adults! haha :)
Comments
Post a Comment