One Woman's Perspective
Last Week's Column

Adventures In Car Buying
by Kira Sampson

ave you ever made a decision and known almost immediately that it was a mistake, but you were unable to do anything about it?

Let me set the scene for you: My mother had just sold her house and bought a mobile home. She had about two thousand dollars left, and wanted to buy a larger, more dependable car than the subcompact she was presently driving. My husband and I were visiting at the time, and agreed to do the legwork for her, with the final approval up to her.

KIRA’S CAR BUYING RULE NUMBER 1:
Never, never agree to go car shopping for someone else. Even if that person is your mother. Even if that person trusts your judgement completely. Just don’t.

Okay, so we scanned the classifieds and picked out several cars to check out, called and talked to people, the usual stuff. We went to see this one car, a Cutlass Ciera, about 10 years old but apparently in excellent condition. The body was in good shape, as was the interior, the tires looked okay, and the car appeared to be well taken care of. And when we did a test drive, the motor sounded good and the car rode well. We took it by and showed it to my mother, she said it looked great to her, and she trusted our judgement. (Boy, does the memory of that statement cause a pang now!).

So she wrote out a check, and we bought the car.

KIRA’S CAR BUYING RULE NUMBER 2:
Never, never buy a car from a college student who is graduating and leaving the country. Or even the state. After you drive off in the car, smiling and waving goodbye, they will break all speed limits getting to the bank and cashing your check, and by the time you discover the true condition of the car, they’ll be long gone.

After bringing the car home, we all decided to go out for a ride in celebration. We hadn’t gone five miles when the engine started knocking. Of course, we were hoping that was just because of inferior gasoline — you know all those oil company ads that talk about your engine "knocking" and "pinging", and their gasoline is just what you need to fix it up? Well, unfortunately the best gasoline in the world wouldn’t fix this problem.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My husband and I had to leave the next day because he had to get back to work. So we told my mother to take it to a garage and have them look it over and tell us what was wrong with it. To make a long (and dreary) story short, we had to put a new (rebuilt) engine in the car. And since my husband and I had chosen the car, we of course felt obligated to pay for the new engine, which set us back about $1500, nearly the original cost of the car.

KIRA’S CAR BUYING RULE NUMBER 3:
If you buy a lemon, just accept the fact that it’s a lemon. Don’t keep pouring money into it. It’ll eat you alive.

Do you know how painful it is to part with that much money, long distance, all because you made a stupid decision? And to hear, over the course of the next four years, how many things are really wrong with the car? Things like the air conditioner has leaked out all the freon, this in a climate which in summer reaches 100 degrees and 100 percent humidity almost every day? And that the garage failed to reattach the heater hoses when they replaced the engine (which my mother didn’t discover for six months, because we bought the car in June), and now the garage owner has retired, so she can’t take the car back to him?

And then....and then....the car dies. Completely. So what do you do? I mean, my mother lives on Social Security. That little bit of money she got from the sale of her house is probably the most she’s ever had, and it’s long gone. And we aren’t in such great financial shape ourselves...

Stay tuned for Part Two of
"Adventures in Car Buying."

Kira Sampson is a writer, homeschool mother, news editor, and editor/publisher of two newsletters, one for her local homeschool group and the other for a local writer's group.

She is also one of the Founders of VegSource. Her column, One Woman's Perspective, is a regular feature of VegSource On-Line Magazine.