So the Oldsmobile Achieva finally died. Well it didn't die exactly, but it was going to cost at least $2,000 to fix which is way too much for a 14 year old car.
I had been blissfully driving it to and from Longview, Texas for work, and it seemed I was having to put more and more antifreeze in it. I told myself it was because it was over 100 degrees outside, and it WAS an old car after all. Ben was having none of those excuses, and while I was volunteering at the shelter on a Saturday, he took it into the shop. The news was not very good, to say the least. Ben called me two hours later and asked me when I wanted to go car shopping.
Ok, I had planned on getting a new car in the spring. Which was only like, 6 months away. During this 6 months I was going to pay off the majority of my credit card debt, most of it associated with Basil. Once everything was paid off, THEN I was going to go out and buy a new car. Apparently no one had informed the Oldsmobile, and she decided to die before I was ready. Ahhh...such is life.
Ben wanted to go out and "just look" at cars. However, that was not in my plans. Being much like my mother, I do not share transportation well. The reason I had a car when I was 16 was not because I wanted one, it was because we lived too far out for me to take the bus, and my Mom hated working her morning around dropping me off at school. Let's just say with that history, I was not willing to spend the next several weeks looking at new cars and sharing Bens'. No way.
I have been looking at the Pontiac Vibe for several years now. The Vibe gets good gas mileage, is a hatchback, which I love, and has plenty of room in the back for all of my small four footed hellions.
We decided to het the Pontiac used lot, where they showed me several cars that were NOT Vibes. Now, I may have considered another type of car, but I had one other desire I refused to budge on, the car MUST have cruise control. No negotiation on that. So this salesman is showing me all these cars, which don't have cruise by the way, and they don't think they have any Vibes on the lot. As Ben and I are about to leave, they tell us they just got one in from auction and I am free to drive it if I want. We, Ben, I, and the Salesman, take the car out. I immediately really like it, it's zippy and has nice room on the inside. I do notice that the inside is not very clean, and kind of looks like its had a hard life. The outside doesn't look so bad, however it is a 2005 and it already has 38,000 miles on it. Ouch!
However, I felt if I could get them to come way down on the price, I would seriously consider it. Who can resist a bargain after all? Right away the guy tells me the car is marked at $17,995 but because they are having a "sale" the car is for this weekend marked down to $15,995. I told him my dad worked in car sales, and I know a sale is not really a sale. Come on, they mark things up to mark them down. Whatever, I wasn't falling for that one. So we start to negotiate, and they come back with a final offer of $14,100. I thanked them for their time and walked out, the car was NOT worth that. Here's the funny part, the used car manager came running out after me, saying he just couldn't come down lower because he wouldn't make any money. I told him it wasn't my problem he paid too much for the car at auction, and he may be able to get a person to pay what they wanted for the car, but it wasn't going to be me.
We left the Pontica dealership, went to grab a drink, and decided to check out the used Toyota dealeship for Matrixs' since it is basically the same car as the Vibe. Turns out the Toyota dealership does't have any Matrix's, but they do have two Vibes. We decided to test drive the red one, and it is super clean on the inside, only has 22,400 miles on it, and is still under warranty. They want $15,995 for the car, but say they may be able to get the price down to $14,995. It has a few paint scratches, and one tiny little dent, but other than that it looks really good. They offer me $400 for the Oldsmobile, I sign some papers and I am on my way with my first non-beater car.
So in the end for $900 more than the Pontiac dealership I was able to get fewer miles, still under warranty, and far more clean both inside and out. I was very happy, that day anyway.
The next few days I had some buyers remorse. Did I do the right thing, did I pick the right car, could I have found something better? However, I have found going over the internet for the past weeks, very few used Vibes have such low miles, and the majority of them have been rentals for 1.5 - 2 years. My car also came with all of its accessories, the back tie downs, all the hooks and eyes, and all of the floor mats. A month later I am not sorry I bought this car, I love it, and it is everything I hoped it would be!
