Climbing in Skirts

These last few weeks I have been dealing with things that I hate the most. 1) Spending money and 2) cars/driving.

I've dreaded the day that I would have to replace my car. I purchased my Corolla in 2000 after wrecking my original Corolla. It wasn't the car I wanted but I needed a car and I didn't really want to shop around and I didn't want to buy anything that required me to have a car payment. Seven years later I still had the car. 2 years ago I pondered getting a new car but once again, my fear of spending money won out.

This year the Corolla started costing me more money than I wanted to spare so I decided it was time for it to go. I figured out that I could afford a car if I could get the payments down to $200/month. This would require that I actually got around $2000 from my car and I applied for an interest free $5000 loan with the international bank of dad. Money would be tight, but I could do it.

I started test driving cars. I was looking at the Versa and the Fit. On August 10th I surrendered my deposit to the Honda dealership. I was told that I would have my Fit at the end of August or the 1st week of September, and by the way, we will only give you $950 for your trade in.

The race was on to find someone who would pay me more for my car (to lessen the blow of the car payment). I posted the car on Craigslist for the blue book value, $2500. My goal was to get back the $2000 that I lost to my mechanic this year. Selling a car is really difficult when you don't know the exact date your new car will arrive. I called the salesman at the Honda dealership to see if he had a better idea of when the car would arrive, he told me the same story, he also said he would call me if anything changed.

On 8/26 a few people wanted to see the Corolla. 1 person wanted to buy the car for his teenager and wanted to give it to them on the 1st day of school. I'd have to part with the car on Monday. He offered me $2200. That was enough to recoup my losses and get a rental car for the week while I waited for my car to arrive.

Tuesday I called the dealership to get the VIN# for the vehicle so I could get my insurance and loan paperwork finalized. I spoke with one of the guys in the sales department. He said that the car was just built on the 24th. IT WAS STILL IN JAPAN AT THE FACTORY. This was not good. I felt sick. It would be another 4-6 weeks for the car to get here. From Japan, the car goes on a boat to California, then it gets on a train and slowly inches its way to the dealership. I told the sales guy I was pissed off because I was told my car would be here within the next week. He asked if I wanted to talk to my salesman. I told him that I would speak with him later and that I would be speaking with salesman at OTHER DEALERSHIPS because I had sold my car and had a rental.

More freaking out.... Stress had taken over and my body was shutting down. I started calling other dealerships in Texas. A dealership in Dallas had an orange Fit. Unfortunately he couldn't hold the car for me. He said he could overnight me the paperwork and attempt to hide the fit, but without my being there he really couldn't do anything.

Breathe and Reboot... There is only so long that I could be angry with the Honda people. I needed to redirect the anger into productivity. My loan pre-approval was only good until 9/13 and there was a chance that I could loose my rockstar interest rate. I decided that I had to find another car. I had looked at the Mazda 3 but there was no way I could afford a new one. I started looking at used Mazda 3s and then the used Toyota Matrix. I found a few and I was started off on my next round of test driving. I called the Scion Dealership near my house to see if the 2008 Xd was out (I had seen this comparison test and it sparked my interest). They said they would call me back. I didn't hear back from them.

Thursday I had scheduled a test drive on a Toyota Matrix at Carmax. I also planned to look at the Matrix at the Toyota Dealership since it was next door. I decided to take a chance and call the Toyota Dealership to see if the Scion department had the Xd. They did. They had been on the lot for 8 days and they had one in every color.

I decided to bypass the used cars and check out the Xd. Everything came standard and I could actually afford it. It was cheaper than the FIT. I signed the papers on Thursday night. Friday I took care of the insurance and the bank. I also called the Honda people to tell them I wanted my deposit back. Saturday I drove the car off the lot.

You can check out the Xd here...
I bought the silver one.