An unplanned day

After a hellish week of what folks of my type might call “women’s issues,” my plan for today was to get get the oil in my car changed at 10 and have them look at the leak near the sun roof. It looked like some rubber was loose and needed glued back down. Next, I was going to pick up my prescriptions, go by the grocery store, and be home by mid-afternoon. It didn’t really work out that way.

Instead, I arrived at my dear Saturn dealer’s and found that my car needed one of its super maintenance visits: rotate the tires, new spark plugs, oil, new air filters, etc., etc. Great. Not good enough? $300+ estimate and 4.5 hours to do the work. Okay, fine. I was planning on looking at a Vue, trying to get a test drive, and finding out how to sign up for a hybrid so that I might get one of the first ones.

The test drive was easy. They let me take a car that the business manager had been driving (a front-wheel drive, 4-cylinder green one) and do whatever I wanted. It helps to always go to the same place for my maintenance. They didn’t even ask to see my driver’s license before setting me free in their car. I drove down to the nearest interstate entrance, drove it on the highway, back through town to my house, tested it in the garage (to make sure it fit properly), played around with parking it in the movie theater lot behind the Saturn dealer, and back into the dealer’s lot. I had it for 45 minutes (and they said I could take an hour, so I was quite the good girl).

At that point, I sat down to do a little busy work in the waiting area. About 30 minutes or so after settling in, one of the salespersons, Dale, was finished with the previous customer and chatted with me about the options. I explained that I wanted a hybrid, etc. After some quizzing of my habits though, he said that I wouldn’t really save money on the hybrid since they’re more expensive and I didn’t do enough driving to benefit from the hybridity. Hmm. Okay, I figure I have time to think about all this. I wasn’t planning to do anything today anyway.

About 30 minutes after that, the service person tells me that the sun roof has rusted out. I identified the right place, but not the right cause. Cost? Almost $500. That was when I started in on the phone calls. It was pouring rain, so I couldn’t go outside. Instead, I closed myself up in the kiddie playroom and called my mom for advice. We decided that I needed to ask the salesperson about trade-in value with and without the fix. Salesguy at this point is eating lunch, so I tell him when he’s done that I need to chat with him again.

I explain the situation to him once he finishes his pizza, and he goes off to figure out the trade-in value. It had stopped raining; so I went outside and called my brother for advice on what I should do and what I should go for: all-wheel drive 6-cylinder OR front-wheel drive 4-cylinder. He said the AWD, since if I was in Virginia at Christmas and needed to get back to Illinois, I’d need the more capable snow car. This is not, of course, the way that I usually make decisions. Usually I would do all this research myself so that I could make my own decision.

Go back into the dealer. They came up with a kind $1700, not bad for a 10-year-old car, and they did take into account the maintenance underway (new plugs, etc.). The salesguy explained that fixing the roof was not going to increase the value $500. So essentially I was going to lose money. Sigh. That was when I realized that I was buying a new car and soon. You can’t run around with a rain roof, and if I ruined the top of the car, its trade-in value would plummet.

So we went through the available cars on the lot. The AWD, 6-cylinder was pricier (and they didn’t have the color I wanted). Things were also limited by my adamant insistence that there would be no sun roof in my future. This is the second time the damned thing had a major problem (It stuck open in St. Louis once, and refused to close). Since I was unsure, and Dale my sales chum wasn’t sure that I really needed AWD, he went to find one that was close to what I wanted for me to drive; so that I could compare them before deciding.

Called Mom again at that point, and essentially she listened while I talked myself into the cheaper FWD. After all, if the weather is that bad, I have no business going out and driving around in it. While she and I were on the phone, I got the dealer’s book of details on the Vues on the lot and found that there was a FWD in my color, no sunroof, with the basic things that I wanted.

Dale my chum comes back, and I tell him what I’m thinking and the other car I’m considering. He had me drive a bit in the AWD. I grant that it felt a little smoother than the FWD, with a bit more pick-up; but it wasn’t enough to make the price difference worth it—especially since I was going to have to settle for a color I didn’t really want (Storm Grey). I decided on the FWD&#8212$4K cheaper, the color I wanted, enough of the features that I wanted.

Next thing I knew, I was filling out forms and meeting with the business manager (whose car I started out driving at 10 AM). We went over the preliminaries, and she suggested that I go get my gold car, which was ready, minus the new sun roof, run some errands, empty the car, and come back around 4 PM to get the new car.

The rest of the afternoon was a hurried blur… prescriptions… groceries… emptying the car (no small task after 10 years)…. Just after 4, I was signing paperwork. By 5, I was driving off in my new car.

The stupidest part is when I got weepy when I had to hand over my old car. It was my baby car :( I swear it hurt to have to give it up. and I know that’s dumb, but that’s how it felt.

After I finished that purchase, I drove to Philo, cuz I needed to drive somewhere. Unfortunately, Lisa wasn’t home. There was a point as I was driving back to Champaign when I thought I should just get on the phone and call Dr.B and tell her I was coming over for a Mai Tai.

I still haven’t gotten to show it to anyone in person. Maybe I should go out and make sure it’s still in the garage or drive it around in the dark. I haven’t driven it in the dark yet. It still doesn’t feel real. If anything, it feels very unsettled. This isn’t how I planned to get a new car. I was going to wait till the Fall and get a hybrid. All said, I’m sure this had to be the right decision, but it just doesn’t feel perfect and right quite yet. From some distanced logical place, it feels like what I was supposed to do, like it has to have been the right thing. But from the emotional and real place where I am, it still feels so bizarre and unsure. Maybe after I drive it around a bit more. It had 22 miles on it when I got it, so I’ve only driven 31 miles. I’m sure it needs more time before it feels right.