Saturday, December 19, 2009

Cars are pains in the ass...

I know. I drive a lot. And I like having a comfortable car. But cars can be a pain in the ass. Take the 2007 Toyota Avalon I recently bought. It needed some touch-up paint on the front bumper and the hood, so the dealer that sold me the car retrieved the car from me (as part of the sales deal) the Monday after the Friday I bought it. After the painting was done, the salesman was in the process of delivering it to me when he sideswiped some High Occupancy Vehicle lane marker uprights, scraping the left side of the car.

After the took the car back to repair the damage, I decided I did not want that car. I wanted another one...same model, same general mileage (40K), same pristine condition. They balked, but agreed. But after almost 3 weeks, they could not find one. So, today I go back to the dealer, pick up a check for what I paid them and got for my trade-in, and leave.

And then I start over. Do I look for a similar car? Do I do without for awhile, renting when I really need one, or jump into it again and quickly get another vehicle of some kind? I don't know. We'll see. I probably won't try to get another one like it. As much as I like the luxury, it's a dull-handling beast. I don't know. We'll see.

Cars are pains in the ass. But I'm not complaining. The dealer could have been a horse's ass. In fact, the dealer has been very accommodating. It's quite unusual for me to have anything but utter disdain for car dealers. This is a new experience.

1 comment:

Pensionado said...

Well, John, that was probably the best solution.

I gotta say, though, that I have really felt that our MB wagon was a good deal, even though I have had to put in a new trannie and have the engine rebuilt (of course Mexican labor rates took a lot of bite out of that). For luxury and good handling, a SAAB 9000 aero would be great. But GM just dumped SAAB, the swine. Only the older ones were good: under GM SAABs were just chevvies with different sheet metal.