Ravings of the Occasionally Opinionated

Car Search: Saved by the Transmission Leak

"It's against the law for a teenager to drive an Audi A8." Thus spake my boss when I told him I really needed to get my son a car so he wouldn't be driving mine. He went on to elaborate that it was also against the law for a teenager to have a car with leather seats. Ohh. Pretty strong opinion. I'd love nothing more than to find a really reliable brand of car, say an Acura, pretty old but with a lot of life left in it, for dirt cheap. You think I'll find an Acura with cloth? No way.

My boss also felt that Garrett's refusal to drive my truck was a ruse to drive the A8. Well, yes and no. I don't like driving the truck, and I can imagine that it is even harder for him. The only time he drove it he hit a tree (with the passenger mirror. It didn't seem to damage it, as it was already damaged from the previous owner hitting something.) "You're too far right, you're too far right!" [Wap.] "Son of a virgin [or some such thing], when I say you're too far right I mean you're too far right! Uh, well actually, don't feel bad. I've hit things with that mirror, too, and so did the previous owner." He has refused to drive it since hitting the tree. I, on the other hand, am now driving it way more than I would like and find it like driving a race car at speed. You are always on the hairy edge of control, fighting to keep it on the road. However, it's lacking the razor sharp turn in, brakes and handling of the race car. The hairy edge of control is the only similar characteristic. It's that lack of handling that makes control something requiring advance planning, as if the steering and brakes were mere suggestions of intent. It's not something you want to inflict on a new driver. I suggested that Garrett should drive the truck, since it was worth way less and would be cheaper to repair, and he replied, "So you want to make that trade-off against the near certainty that I will crash it?" Thus, Garrett drives a 2001 310HP Audi A8 while I drive my 1996 Chevy Tahoe. When I get in my A8, there is weird-sounding stuff in the CD player. The truck at least does have a CD player, which race cars do not. I hope the cars around me don't realize how close to the edge of handling that truck is, and I wonder at all the other SUVs out there being driven like cars.

I looked at a 1993 $3000 (or best offer) Acura Vigor with 128,000 miles. That ad had been on cars.com for while, so I figured the guy would be anxious to get rid of it and I was thinking $2500. That was before I saw it. Nothing seriously wrong except that the brakes pulled hard left, and there was no evidence that the ABS could prevent wheel lockup. The ABS light didn't even know enough to light up and say it wasn't working. Apparently Vigors collect water (which in New England winter, would be salt water) right at the back of the rear doors. Although the car seemed to be solid overall, the finger probe of the little rust spot visible when you opened the back door went right through. "Oops. Sorry I knocked off that paint." It had a cool CD player that would play mp3 CDs, and of course, leather. I only offered $2200. The "best offer" part of the ad was apparently to get gullible people like me to come look. He still owed $3200 on the car, and wasn't about to budge.

Disheartened, I upped my price range and a much newer car caught my eye. A 2000 (wow!) Dodge Stratus with only 88,000 miles! Practically new. Being sold reasonably cheaply because the owner has already been transferred to Europe. I've driven a Dodge Stratus loaner from the Audi dealer once when my car was in for service. I thought it pretty risky of the Audi dealer to be presenting unhappy Audi owners (whose Audis are, of course, in the shop) with a pretty decent car, not as nice as an Audi, but which only costs half as much! It gets you thinking, and provoking thoughts like that isn't a good sales technique unless you're the Dodge salesman. I looked at this car at night. Seemed pretty OK. It was missing a hubcap and the right rear power window didn't operate. The friend of the owner and I agreed on a price of $3300, pending seeing it in daylight. A day or two went by while we tried to figure out how to arrange our schedule for me to get the car looked at by mechanic and get him paid and so forth. He didn't take a deposit, and was worried that there were lots of other calls on it while I had it tied up. I assured him that I would buy it, barring something really wrong with the car. The guy drove it to my mechanic's (again at night) where we left it and I gave him a ride back home. Strangely, Garrett wasn't interested in seeing it, as he trusted me.

Next morning I stopped to see the car in the daylight. The tires didn't match. The rears were in good shape but the fronts were pretty worn. It looked like someone had tried to break into the driver's door, as the lock wasn't sitting against the door properly. Hmmm.

Later that day, I got a call from Alice. "I just thought of something. Does it have a CD player?" No, it does not. "That's a deal breaker." My mind races. It should be against the law for teenagers to be futzing with CDs while driving a car. (My teenager futzes with one while driving my A8!) You don't choose what cheapo used car you buy based on a CD player! I can't back out of this deal after tying the guys car up for the first 3 days his ad is out based on no CD player. Alice continues, "Garrett has to have a CD player. He'll hate it." That'll teach him to not look at the car. I'm thinking he can use his iPod, played through the radio using that FM device he lost long ago. It sounds like a barely acceptable compromise to Alice. "The car has to have a CD player."

The mechanic's voice sounds a little strange. It doesn't sound like good news. "It's missing a hubcap and the right rear window doesn't work. Since it doesn't work with either switch, it is probably the motor, not the switch." (Tell me something I don't know.) He continues, "The front tires are worn out and the rear tires are cupped." (GAK! Something must be wrong with the alignment or suspension.) "I recommend four new tires. The car has never had a tuneup, and at close to 90,000 miles, all the belts are cracked and it needs a lot of work. The hood and right side back to the rear passenger door has been repainted. The transmission is leaking from at least 2 places -- I didn't have time to check exactly where from. It needs at least $1200 worth of work. But of course, the transmission could be more."

And it didn't have a CD player, either, so I walked away.