Bloggin it up

New Car in 2 days (hopefully)

Where to start.

So two weeks ago I was going over a speed bump with my... crazy long lasting... 5 years for me... 390,000km... awesome... 93 civic, and I blew a tie rod end. Basically this means my tire decided it didn't like pointing the direction the wheel was telling it to go, and it decided to do it's own thing (sideways). I wasn't going fast, and no one was hurt, and getting it towed back to my house was a story in itself.

I decided that even though dad said it would be relatively cheap to fix, it was time to start looking for something else to drive. First I was thinking something practical, I decided initially on a subaru wagon, a little sporty and I can toss Jennie in the back.
So I went on kijiji and found lots of expensive deals, then on the trader site, I found a few that were more reasonable.

I don't like looking at cars without my dad there to give me the low down of what he thinks about it (for those that don't know dad teaches auto shop). Dad has been busy the last year with building his retirement house, so I got surprised on Wednesday with a call from dad telling me he could look at cars tonight, but then he had to go back to the cottage on Thursday. So after canceling floor hockey, I called around and found 2 Subarus that I wanted to look at.

One unfortunately at a dealer, the other a private sale.

So we went to the dealer first, the car was good, it had everything.... except for cruise control... very strange option to exclude as it was fully loaded with everything else. So I thought about it for a bit, and I decided that no cruise was a deal breaker, I really wanted cruise. Looking around the small lot, I noticed another car that I really like and have admired from afar before. This car (the actual make of car I will keep a secret for now) was a little over my price range, and a little under my year range but admirable to say the least, I asked for a test drive, and was told that someone previously had test drove it previously and left the lights on, now the battery was dead. So I needed to come back later for a test drive. We bartered a bit on the price as well before leaving, and got it a little closer to my price range.

Then we went to the private sale, and had to wait for a few minutes for the lady to come back from a volleyball game, she should have given me a later time to meet over the phone, as I gave her an extra 1/2 hour over the time she said she was available and she was still late. Anyway that aside, this car was even more fully loaded it had everything but a kitchen sink, but when I took it out for a test drive I was amazed at how little power was under my foot, especially since it had a new engine put in a year ago... and I thought most subarus had decent engines. I finished my test drive, turned around to go back, floored it, and slowly crept up to the speed limit. Suffice to say I didn't really want that car.

Then the next day I went to take the admirable car for a test drive, with a friend from work that is a little more knowledgeable about cars. I really liked it but it had a few minor things I wanted him to fix. *note* I hate dealing with used car dealerships I have to be careful with what I ask him to fix cause I know it will be a half assed job. So I ask him to fix the bumper (it is not connected at one side, and looks a little wonky), and to give it an alignment (it pulled slightly to the right) . I did feel a little paranoid that I was going to get screwed with a lemon , but after talking to my dad about it, he suggested giving it a compression test. So after a bit of a hassle with the dealership I took it out to my parents on Sunday. Compression was a decent, not great, but it isn't a new engine. Dad was able to give it a much better look over as well, which gave me a much better feeling about buying it. I also noticed a few other things that I wanted them to fix, the spark plugs could be replaced, and the fan seemed to only work on high (strange).

So hopefully they will be able to fix all this by Friday, and I will be driving my new shiny car up to Toronto and to Wonderland this weekend. Yay.

posted by Matt @ 12:34 PM