A New Car! (06/03/2021)

Sitting at the car dealer waiting for a few things to be done to the new vehicle we bought feeling again that we probably have been had and paid too much. Why does one always have that feeling, when buying a car or buying a home, you feel like you just paid too much?

We needed to buy a different vehicle. The one we replaced was a 2001 Honda CRV, one of those with the tire on the back and a picnic table in the trunk. The tire in the back actually had a wren nesting in it and I am sorry but the brood went once a week for a day to the office and grocery shopping at times. It makes you wonder if the eggs were still viable when we discovered them. That CRV had 270,000 or so miles on it. The other car we own is a Honda Accord from 2007 with 330,000 miles on it. So you can see, we do not have a terribly reliable vehicle for extended road trips. On top of that, the newspaper reported on the skyrocketing car rental prices, so that did not seem to be an option either.

And here it happened. My 94 year-old father-in-law was at the dentist to have a tooth extracted and when he got back into his car, yes he still drives, he started bleeding profusely. He is not very ambulatory and called the dentist on his phone. The dentist came running out to the car and fixed him up, not before my father-in-law had blood all over himself. As a result, he did not feel well enough to drive and my wife needed to go out to get him in her 20 year-old CRV. On the way home her car broke down, a hose broke. It was a rare 90-degree (30+ degree Celsius) spring day. Here my father-in-law gets out of the car in the parking lot of a grocery store covered in blood with my wife standing next to her. The only thing missing is a big butcher knife or a hatched.

I realize that buying a new car is foolish. You lose value the minute you drive it off the lot and that is it. We understand that. However, we tend to maintain our cars and keep them for a long time. Since our return to the U.S. from our overseas assignments we have owned a Honda Civic 4WD wagon, which one stayed with us for 15 years; a Toyota Pickup with we had for 25 years, and the two vehicles about which I have been writing above, 20 and 14 years, respectively. We tend to drive until they fall apart. At least we know who drives them and takes care of them. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not, but we think so.

We have been talking about going more environmentally friendly, and I told my wife that my next car would be a Tesla. The compromise was a CRV hybrid. I am happy to say that the first tank of gas is about half-way done and the gas millage is 38 miles to the gallon or more than 16 kilometers per liter. Not bad at all. We really wanted something that used less gas, but my wife was still weary of all electric. However, the time will come that we will make that switch.

The new and the old; left to right.  Of course with the old and the young in the middle.

So here I am sitting at the dealer having a roof rack installed, and having a little buyer’s remorse or should I call it just wondering if we have been had; paid too much. I am still not sure why car sales folks do this to you, but darn that feeling. However, I am sure that 10 or 15 years from now we will not remember this, maybe only when looking back at this blog post. I am sure we will have fun with this vehicle while being a little protective of the environment.