Tuesday, 2 March 2004
09:07 PM
Well, I'm a two-car family. Our car dealer experience was ultimately successful. The first time we were there was a Wednesday, but there were no cars to be found. I had bet Erica a nickel, a lottery ticket, and dinner that we would see no cars before the month (and the cheap financing) would expire. But I lost. The next day we got a succession of emails from the dealer reporting on their progress with finding the vehicles we wanted. But we weren't that picky -- color and five-speed were the only real requirements. I got email that my car would be there at 8:00. Erica's, maybe.
I think I probably did not explain that Erica and I were each buying a car. Her motivation was her 1995 VW Golf, which had become very unreliable in spite of increasingly expensive mechanical attention. I wasn't really in a big hurry, other than that I'd promised the kids' mom that I would have sorted out the vehicle situation by summer so that the kids could have my old Mazda 323. So although it wasn't urgent for me, it was an ok time to think about a car, and the deal seemed right.
The dealership apparently found it amusing that they were selling two of the same car to a couple. It is kind of cute, I suppose. As long as we don't start wearing matching track suits, perhaps.
We showed up at 8:00, and there they were, parked next to each other. There was paperwork and such, all processed at a leisurely pace. While this happened, Dave, our salesman, felt like he needed to keep us occupied. I would have preferred that we be left to our own devices; I had brought the newest issue of The New Yorker which had, interestingly, an article on the psychology of decision making and the paralysis of choice. No such luck, though. Dave spent time gassing and giving us some tips on reading the owner's manual. "You don't need to," was his basic advice, but he clearly hadn't anticipated the reaction to such advice from a technical writer and production manager.
We did learn that Dave had had a long and distinguished career as a salesman, mostly at Nordstrom.[1] In fact, he used to travel around giving presentations to other salespeople. This, then, is the place to note the irony of Mike and Erica being so snotty when in fact Dave clearly was a great salesman. Ok, sure, whatever. It didn't make him any more interesting to talk to. One sort of amusing thing is that the other sales guys, who obviously had nothing to do, stopped by. "You're buying two cars?" one guy asked several times, apparently not quite believing us. Then Dave and another fellow reminisced about some of the wackier sales they'd had, including a guy who'd bought an Echo, Toyota's low-end car, and then tricked it out with so many features that the price was more than double the MSRP.
Finally we did numbers and checks and did-we-want-extended-warranties and all that, and it was 10:00, and they took a picture of us with our new cars and gave us some flowers. We then drove home, Dave in my old Mazda. We pulled up at the house and I went in and got Sabrina, who had no idea what I was up to. Her reaction was all I could have hoped for: eyes wide open and her mouth a big round O with her hand in front. Tee-hee.
Having a new car is both cool and weird. This is the first new car I've bought for myself, ever. Moreover, I'm moving from an old car (1988) that was the basic model of its day into a car that has a few nice touches, so the contrast is particularly striking to me. This is also the first time I've had a choice of car colors. So I chose red. By golly, this is going to be my midlife crisis car, so it's got to be red, doesn't it?
The first thing I loved right off the bat was that I was sitting much higher than I had in the old car. It's not like an SUV or anything, but I can see a lot more. It has lots of power things -- windows, mirrors, moonroof -- which are fun to play with. When I was driving home the first night, I was a major highway menace, so distracted was I by hitting buttons and trying out all the switches. There are little compartments and storage areas everywhere, for your sunglasses and your cell phone and the all-important cupholders. (None of which I had in my old car.) The car has what are grandly called "fog lights," and when I turn on all my many headlights at night I feel like I'm piloting a 747.[2]
Probably the least expected feature is a 115V outlet to accompany the ordinary 12V socket for the cigarette lighter. (The socket is standard, but the lighter itself is an extra, heh.) It would not have occurred to me to seek out a 115V outlet in any car smaller than an RV. But now that I have it, I suppose I'll find uses for it. For example, this morning I charged the laptop while I was driving to work, which seemed a particularly appropriate use.
It will take a few days to get used to the idea that this is my car. Erica said it best when she said that it was like driving a rental. It's new and it smells of vinyl and the interior is eerily clean ("sterile," someone suggested) which makes it feel like it's not my car. We can assume that this will all change very soon.
I was slightly worried about how well the new car would fit in the garage. After all, it is a station wagon, whatever pretensions it might have to being a sportscar. When I got home the first night I gingerly pulled the car into the garage. It fits, but it's tighter than the old car for sure. The next day I had to do some rearranging to make enough room to be able to open the driver-side door comfortably enough to avoid whacking it against something.
I picked the kids up at school the other day, which was the first time they had ridden in the car. Zack, who is at that age when boys think about cars a lot[3], admired the stereo, which admittedly is quite a step up from what I'm used to. I can also hear it, since the car is much quieter than my old beast. Zack also asked whether it "had a turbo." Yeah, right. On the contrary. Like other Toyotas in my experience, the Matrix is adequately but certainly not generously powered, presumably to get better mileage. Even so, because the car is quieter than what I'm used to, I have to be careful or I find myself speeding, since I can't judge the car's speed by sound alone any more.
One last note. One of the features we liked was the cargo space. The back seats fold down easily, creating a generous area back there. The back is also lined with plastic, which seemed useful for when we really wanted to haul Home Depot stuff or take the dogs someplace. (No leather interior for me!) I got my first chance to test the dog-transport theory this morning. Henry needed to go to the vet, so I opened the back, folded everything down, and invited the mutt to hop on in. We drove off, with me enjoying the fact that I could open the rear windows with a button, and Henry enjoying the fact that he could stick his schnozz in the wind. All was well until I took the first turn, and poor Henry went skittering across the car, his feet losing purchase on the slick plastic floor of the back. Hmmm. We'll have to work that one out, because I don't want the hounds to be skidding back and forth across the back any time we want to take them someplace.
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