‘Car Men’ are funny creatures. Like Upendilife I am car shopping. I will by the end of this week be just under my $5,000 goal and I have hit the saving fatigue wall. I am sick of saving money for something that I don’t feel is worth it in comparison to my LoC… cars are a diminishing asset after all. Any ways my BF who likes to consider himself a ‘Car Man’ was not happy that my search was only focused around the Toyota Echo hatch back. He complained that I wasn’t giving myself enough options and that I should consider the Pontiac Wave and the Suzuki Swift as well.
A while back, I did a bit of research and found that while the Wave was a lot cheaper it also did not have stellar reviews. I did try to express this but it was lost on def ears with both by Bf and my mom. And to be fair I am sure I didn’t scream loud enough, because there was a bit a lot of bias towards the echo on my part. So, on his advice I shifted focus to the Wave; since I had given up hope on the Echo ever being in my price range. Today I dropped my BF a few links on the wave that I have looked in to. I think he has clued in that I am serious about the shopping since before it was a half ass attempt on my part, I am sure that frustrated him in the beginning. As it turns out I got a text back form him that I should stop looking into the Wave’s because they have terrible used car reviews in his words “don’t bother with the Wave. It has much worse used car ratings than the Hyundi accent.” I feel like I could have told him this, not that it was worse then the Accent because I didn’t know that. But that the Wave had not so good reviews as a used car.
I am now back to square one. Time is running out for me. Mom goes up to the cottage for the month of August and I have to have a car by then or getting to work is going to be a challenge. I am dreading the thought that I might have to pay dealer prices and then finance a used car. It seams that my ‘worst case scenario’ might just become my ‘best and only option.’
I have learned one thing from this experience. I need to learn manual! A manual car is significantly cheaper than an automatic one.
On a side note, I called TransUnion today to get my credit score. If I am going to go into a financing option I want to know how bad it’s going to be…. Sigh. I haven't really got the heart to talk about my score tonight.
Do you think you are limiting yourself too much by just searching for specific models of cars? Perhaps that could be exactly what you want and there isn't anything wrong with that. But if you are just looking for a quality car could you open up your search parameters. Perhaps by searching for a Toyota in general? Or maybe a Honda? Those are both cars that have great track records. Hope you find what you are looking for at a price that is great for you.
ReplyDeleteMy uncle buys and sells cars and I worked with him for a bit so I can vouch for the accent. It sucks when people don't listen to you just because they believe they have more experience. At least you can play the I told you so card lol.
ReplyDeleteNow onto the car purchase. I agree with little lamb. Quite honestly I have a dream car too but for right now I am just taking the first "good quality" car I can get my hands on. I just have to like it a bit not a lot. Once I can drive it problem free for a while I am happy and anytime after I can start a car fund for the actual car I want. Only thing I am not to happy about is that I chose to finance this car purchase.
I wish you luck on the car hunt but my advice is that if all you need is your own set of wheels, open your search and look for something of good quality even if you have to finance some of it(a small amount). All excess money is well worth going toward you LoC.