Car Searching
Don’t get me wrong: we love our Vern, our 1997 Volvo sedan who’s been part of our family since we moved to California. But now that I actually leave the house and want to do things with the baby, it’s getting harder and harder to get by on one car. It’s not that big a deal to drive Andrew to work, but it seems to throw off our morning schedule of playtime, feeding, and naps, upsetting her before we’ve even taken a bite out of the day. So we’ve decided to add another car to our life.
It’s probably high time to do so. Vern has almost 160,000 miles on him, which, in Volvo miles, is still fine. And though he runs just fine, he does have his problems. Here are just a few:
We can’t open the driver’s side back door from the outside.
The interior light is hanging, literally, by a wire, dangling precariously over the carseat.
The driver’s seat cannot be moved forward or backward.
The car leaks when it rains.
The AC doesn’t work well enough for us to survive NorCal summers.
We devoted this weekend to car shopping, focusing on used Volvo station wagons. We started off gung-ho and excited; but now, with a few cars to choose from, we’re gun shy. We found a really nice, nearly new Volvo V50, with 20,000 miles—nothing in Volvo miles—but it will require a car loan and monthly payments. We found a much older Volvo that we could pay for in cash; but it’s seen better days, to say the least. We found a couple in the middle, requiring a car loan but a smaller one.
And so we’re torn. Having never had a car payment, we’re loathe to add one to our budget. But having had a very old Volvo, which does require a certain amount of upkeep, we’re also loathe to add unpredictable repairs, possibly large ones, to our life. A cheap car means we can just sell ourselves car-less when it’s time to move back East; a nicer car means we’ll probably try to keep it and drive it cross-country when we leave. A nicer car will allow us to do that, if we want to; a much older car might send us car-shopping yet again once we move. And who knows when we’ll be moving, anyway? Maybe we should get a $1,500 clunker that just can get Andrew back and forth to work.
My head is spinning. We’ll see what happens. On a side note, Lucia was a little angel while we car shopped, spending almost all of Saturday stuck in her carseat with nary a fuss. It was sunny and warm all weekend, and she was barefoot for the first time—I think she liked it. She kept pressing the soles of her little feet together. And I, of course, was happy to be able to gaze at her precious babyfeet whenever the car talk got too taxing.
It’s probably high time to do so. Vern has almost 160,000 miles on him, which, in Volvo miles, is still fine. And though he runs just fine, he does have his problems. Here are just a few:
We can’t open the driver’s side back door from the outside.
The interior light is hanging, literally, by a wire, dangling precariously over the carseat.
The driver’s seat cannot be moved forward or backward.
The car leaks when it rains.
The AC doesn’t work well enough for us to survive NorCal summers.
We devoted this weekend to car shopping, focusing on used Volvo station wagons. We started off gung-ho and excited; but now, with a few cars to choose from, we’re gun shy. We found a really nice, nearly new Volvo V50, with 20,000 miles—nothing in Volvo miles—but it will require a car loan and monthly payments. We found a much older Volvo that we could pay for in cash; but it’s seen better days, to say the least. We found a couple in the middle, requiring a car loan but a smaller one.
And so we’re torn. Having never had a car payment, we’re loathe to add one to our budget. But having had a very old Volvo, which does require a certain amount of upkeep, we’re also loathe to add unpredictable repairs, possibly large ones, to our life. A cheap car means we can just sell ourselves car-less when it’s time to move back East; a nicer car means we’ll probably try to keep it and drive it cross-country when we leave. A nicer car will allow us to do that, if we want to; a much older car might send us car-shopping yet again once we move. And who knows when we’ll be moving, anyway? Maybe we should get a $1,500 clunker that just can get Andrew back and forth to work.
My head is spinning. We’ll see what happens. On a side note, Lucia was a little angel while we car shopped, spending almost all of Saturday stuck in her carseat with nary a fuss. It was sunny and warm all weekend, and she was barefoot for the first time—I think she liked it. She kept pressing the soles of her little feet together. And I, of course, was happy to be able to gaze at her precious babyfeet whenever the car talk got too taxing.
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