car shopping

There just is nothing worse for me than shopping for cars. I don't mind bargaining as that part is kind of fun but the vulture like car salesmen scare me with their forceful mannerisms. This weekend we were trying to find a car for our middle son, who is the latest in the succession of boys to have cars in our family. Like our next to oldest, I let him search the web to find cars he likes as he knew the amount that he had to spend and what he wanted to get. In these economically troubling days, small dependable cars are a bit hard to find as the days of the gas burning SUVs is on the downturn and people want just the car my son is looking for. He wanted a small car with good gas mileage and finally found one in north Raleigh last weekend that he wanted to see. He has been searching for the last couple of months but had to pass his final road test to get his unrestricted driver's license first before a car could be considered. That extra time was good as it enabled him to figure out what kind of car he really wanted. We test drove several cars so he got a feeling of what he liked also. Yesterday was the big day when he drove with his other two siblings and myself to see this car. It was a beautiful sunny day, which I tried to convince everyone that it would be a great day for hiking, but I got overruled as car shopping got a higher priority. The whole affair was fairly painless as the small used car dealer where the car was located had just bought this car at an auction and was happy to sell it to us. I bargained a little and before we knew it we had a car. We pick it up today as I did not have enough money with me and our son did not feel comfortable driving it by himself for the 30 minutes to our home through downtown Raleigh. Today we have yet another Hyundai in our family.

Car shopping brings back memories of past events with the other kids. Our next to oldest did his own searching for months and we bought his car at the local flea market since that is where the owner met us for the exchange of money for the car. He as so happy when he got home with his car, and yet just after a couple of months he accidentally ran into the post at a local gas station when his flip flop caught on the gas pedal. That resulted in a very nice "V" in the front of his car. His gray car became two shades of red as he found a bumper and hood at junk yard near our house. Then as he was driving home the hood flew back and smashed the windshield as the hood was not latched properly, so yet another car repair. The most amazing thing ever is that this car made it all the way across the USA as my son drove it with his best friend in a cross country road trip. Recently the car stopped working and may have met it's very end. Hopefully this latest car to enter our family will not be inflicted with such car abuse.

Then our oldest son was in such a hurry to buy a car in San Antonio that he quickly found a car and bought it in one week. The used car dealer was not a very reputable one and basically ripped us off. The good news is because we were buying a Honda from him, so the car could take much abuse and still keep going. He failed to tell us the radiator had a leak in it and since it was 100% plastic, it could not be repaired. The brakes were pretty much shot as well. In my son's frantic desperation, we had a car but just barely. Once we made a couple of expensive repairs, he decided to drive all the way back to North Carolina in a non-stop 22 hour driving spree. Eventually when he lost his driver's license, we sold the car to someone else by advertising with a for sale sign as it sat in the nearby WalMart parking lot. The car was in pretty bad shape but still with over 200,000 miles on the odometer, someone bought the Honda Accord for the good gas mileage. May our son's car make it that far as it has a little over 100,000 on it now.