That New Car Smell

I don’t know the first thing about cars. When I open up the hood and look at the engine I pray nothing flies out and hits me in the eye. When a light on the dashboard comes on I treat it like a shooting pain down my left arm; I immediately take Bayer and lie down on the couch. Secretly I hope that I am having a heart attack because the medical bills would probably be less than the car repairs. I really wish my mechanic would just tell me what he wants to give his kids for their birthdays so I could buy it and skip the middle man. I’m working on some sort of conversion chart: A flat tire equals some new clothes, a busted belt equals a new bike and a gasket leak equals a new swing set.

I played that game with my car for the past two years. It started with a couple trips at $400 each. It hurt, but it felt like going to the dentist and only having one cavity. I knew it could be worse. A couple months ago, my fear was realized. My EGR valve was clogged and the corresponding sensor was broken, not to mention a few other incidentals. Although it was explained to me, I still have as much understanding of my EGR valve as I do the female body. This round of repairs set me back a cool $1100. With no dashboard lights on and a sizeable debt to Visa, I drove my ’99 Taurus around with confidence. Until a month later when smoke started coming out of the hood.

I’m a firm believer in the saying, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” In this case, where there’s smoke, there’s an oil pan and gasket leak. That, my friends, is a very large swing set with the optional clubhouse. A quick visit to www.kbb.com revealed that based on the blue book value of my car it was not worth fixing. I apologized to my mechanic and told him the family would have to get their spoils from someone else from now on. I was getting a new car. And by new I mean used.

The first part of buying a new car is taking a look at your finances and having a good cry. I was surprised to learn that even when you’re out of tears you can still “cry.” It’s like dry heaving through your eyes. A few days later you can attack the 5 stages of buying a car. One- selling your old car. Two- finding some financing options. Three- deciding what car you’d like, then actually finding a car in your price range. Four - negotiating, or what I like to call experiencing hell from a sales desk. Five - Signing on the dotted line.

Most of these stages require extensive work, research and follow through. Since none of those are my style, I read through a couple websites, grabbed my checkbook and hit the pavement. (Actually that’s not true. I spent three weeks learning everything I could, getting several financing quotes, researching the most reliable cars and their resale values, getting trade-in offers, and calculating out-the-door costs.) I decided on a Honda Civic because I’ve finally learned that American cars just don’t last. I looked at models from ‘02-‘04 and decided that an ’03 with some bells and whistles was what I wanted. After searching several dealerships, I found Honda World in Orange County about a mile from my studio.

Over a couple weeks I test drove cars, did some casual negotiating and found the car for me: A black, 2003 Civic LX with 32,000 miles on it. I apologize to all my friends who drive Civics, especially black ones since it may appear that I’m ripping off their style. Because the car has so little mileage, it’s basically on ’05 and in pristine condition. And it’s shiny. Oh, so shiny. I ended up trading my car into the dealership for a reasonable price and got them to lower their APR because I had my own financing and they wanted to be the ones to loan me the money. I negotiated to about $2500 under blue book value which I feel was aided by the fact that the owner of the dealership is a huge fan of Jim Rome. (For those of you who don’t know, I work on Jim Rome is Burning on ESPN.) Long story short, I am now the proud owner of a new (read slightly used) car and no longer have to deal with flashing lights, smoke signals and oil leaks. Sure I’m on the hook for a substantial amount of money for the next half decade, but if you’re 26 and not five figures in debt, you’re just not living right.