Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Quest For A Second Car (That I Can Actually Drive) Part 1

Haha, I got you guys good didn't I? I seriously had been waiting so long to do that, since we started looking for a second car, and that was awhile ago. I realized that also would have been fun to do on April Fool's Day, but then you might have been suspicious and not believed it, by virtue of the fact that it was April Fool's Day.

So anyway, here is the epic tale of our quest for a second car that I can actually drive, since I'm a failure at driving stick. It all started with ksl.com...(now this is when the narrator gazes off into space and the scene cuts to a flashback sequence). Andrew and I are now pros at spotting scams on ksl.com (yes, we have learned our lesson). If you ever want to buy a car on ksl.com, here are some of the warning signs and definite indicators that an ad is a scam: a car from the 2000's with low miles is selling for the same price as a car from like 1990 with 250,000 miles (those are absolutely, 100% scams); no phone number is listed; and the Contact person listed is something like "P." or "R." rather than an actual name. Surprisingly enough, or maybe not so surprisingly, there are a lot of scams on ksl. You'd think they'd have people who monitor the ads being posted, but apparently they don't, which is too bad for poor suckers like us. They warn you about scams, but personally, I don't think that's good enough. So anyway, we knew which ads to avoid, and now you do too.

So we wanted an SUV cause Andrew worries about me driving in the snow (joke's on him, cause winter's almost over, but then again the joke will probably be on me because I'm quite sure there will be a few more freak snowstorms in the next like two months cause Utah is stupid like that). We trolled ksl.com for quite a while looking for the perfect car for us that was within our price range (which was like $1000-2000 initially), and we found several that we liked. The first one that we liked enough to go look at was a  1988 Jeep Cherokee. This thing was a monster. It was black, and it had a 3 inch lift, and it looked pretty cool from the picture. It was in south Provo, so we went to check it out one evening. It was much more of a monster in person, and Andrew decided it was too much of a monster, because he said no to that one. So it was back to trolling ksl.com, and the next car we liked was a 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee. The ad said it needed its windshield replaced (which it definitely did), but that was okay. It was out in West Valley City, which is west of Salt Lake, so it was a bit of a drive to look at it, but we went out there and it was indeed a nice Jeep. It reeked of cigarette smoke though, and the guy who was selling it looked like a very shady character (I legitimately thought we might get jumped a few times). We took it to a mechanic cause we are smart buyers and we know what's up, and unfortunately the mechanic said it was a no go. He said the transfer case was leaking and that would cost $1000 to fix, so it wan't worth it. The guy claimed he didn't know about the leak but the mechanic made it sound like it had been leaking for awhile. We decided not to call him out on it. So it was back to searching, and we found a Honda Passport that looked promising, but apparently it looked promising to everyone else too, cause the guy sold it before we could even take a look at it. At this point we were getting a little discouraged, but we keep looking. We had previously found a 1994 Nisan Pathfinder but decided against it because it had 220,000 miles on it, but at his point we just wanted a car, so we went to go check it out. The kid who was selling it looked like he was like 16, and his mom said he buys stuff all the time just to sell it. So we took the Pathfinder to a mechanic, and the mechanic said it was the worst car he had ever seen and was only worth parts. Yeah. We seem to have the best luck.

So, after that one, we decided to just buy from a used car dealership. And on our drive back from looking at the Pathfinder (it was in Springville), we saw a tiny used car dealership and decided to check it out. We walked around and looked at the cars, and after a little while the owner came out to talk to us. He was exactly the opposite of everything you've ever been told about car salesmen. He was basically the nicest guy ever and not even pushy at all. He let us test drive a few of the cars, and he had couple of Subarus that Andrew was interested in, but he had just gotten them and they hadn't been priced yet, so we'd told him we'd come back. Now personally, I think Subarus are butt ugly (or at least Outbacks from like the 90's, which is what he had at the dealership), but I just really wanted a car, so I figured I could suck it up.

And now I've run out of time cause Andrew wants to go to Buffalo Wild Wings for Boneless Thursday, and this post is already freakin' long. Who wants to read something this long anyway? But I've kept you waiting long enough, so I figured I have to give you something. So here's part 1, and part 2 will be up sometime in the near future. And I'll also include pictures. Who doesn't enjoy a good cliffhanger every once in a while? Not that this is a good cliffhanger, cause it really isn't, but oh well.
*Wrap*

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