So I may go car shopping tonight. It’s time. I’ve driven my little Hyundai Elantra for 189K miles since I bought it brand new in 2005. And while it has served me well, the fact is that it is now a hunk of junk that may or may not leave me stranded on the side of the road any given day of the week.
Just last week I had to get it jump started when I discovered I had a dead battery at the end of my workday. After confirming I hadn’t left my headlights on all day, or a door open, I determined it was just a battery in need of replacing. Fortunately there were still two people at my office that afternoon so one of them let me use their car for a jump. The next day I headed over to Costco and bought a brand new battery.
When I drive over 60 mph on the highway, my car usually begins to shudder and protest at the idea of going that fast. Many times I’ve been driving on the highway and feared that my car was suddenly going to die and cause an accident in which *I* would die. I had the car tested by two different mechanics and they could not find anything wrong with the car. They checked the filters, the fuel injection system, the transmission, all belts, all spark plugs and electrical systems. Nada. Nothing found.
My door locks don’t really work any more. Well, they do, but I have to do this whole special rigamarole to get the doors unlocked without setting off the alarms. At work I leave the car unlocked because I can’t be bothered to deal with it when it’s raining and I need to get in my car quickly (I should note that it hasn’t rained in a bazillion days here in SC, but I know the days are coming).
Over the weekend on a whim I looked at some online car dealers to see what was available, and found a 2013 Hyundai Elantra that was a significant step up from my 2005, at a reasonable price.
My current car was the cheapest model available and the only perks it had was power windows and A/C. Not much else. The original stereo was a tape deck with a radio, which I swapped out two years ago with a snazzy double-DIN digital/bluetooth radio from Crutchfield’s (but only after the tape deck died (yes, I randomly listened to cassette tapes until 2017). The new car has the CD/radio as well as XM if I want it.
With my current car I used to know I was going 60 mph when my steering wheel would begin to shake violently back and forth. That “feature” was eventually fixed, which was a shame because that was my cruise control. The new car has actual cruise control.
My current car has no sunroof. I’ve always wanted a car with a sunroof – and the new car appears to have one.
Does it have a backup camera? No. Does it have heated seats? Nope. Does it have all the other bells and whistles that newer cars have? Not at all. Would I like all those things? Absolutely. But those cars are above my budget, and this car is still a major step up from what I currently drive.
The other thing I thought of as I looked at this car online was that if I get this car, it’ll be the car that CootieBoy learns to drive with, and once he has his license in mid-to-late 2020, I can sell the car to him for the remainder of the loan amount (which by that time would be within his budget) and get a newer car for myself. Also, by then I should be out of debt, and able to afford an even nicer, even newer-to-me (2017-2018) vehicle. And CootieBoy will have a reliable car of his own (not as reliable as CG’s Toyota, but close) that he is comfortable driving.
We’ll see what happens. I just know that while I hoped I could wait until next summer to get a new car, the fact is that my 2005 is long overdue for a swap out, and I’d rather do that now than in 3 months after the car leaves me stranded on the side of the road in the middle of rush hour.
Featured image by Pictures of Money.
