Excited: Getting a New Car Today!

My decision to pray more about car shopping has paid off. In fact I know that a number of friends have been praying for me in this regard too!

Last week I felt discouraged about visiting car lots up n' down a street. I decided to do some research and checking online first. Still, no cars in my budget range, but I gave in and tried to chat with those AI bots that try to screen out tire-kickers and find out what you are looking for before they turn you over to a sales person. (Note: I'm not very keen on those bots, but sometimes you have to play along.)

Since my physical visit there came to a dead-end I won't go into all the details here, interesting though that experience was.

I did stop at Atomic on my way home, because I knew they would be closed for the weekend in just a few minutes. The manager and some mechanics were waiting around the counter for 5 pm so they could check out, but they all became lively when I described the car I'd seen but that I could not test drive as it was not road certified. That was not how it should be done!

Mike the manager wanted to call the sales lady I talked with, but she wasn't at her desk, so everything went on hold for the weekend.

The more I thought about it on the weekend I saw how dumb it would be to take that car, the price was over $5,000 and it would cost to get those 2 fixes done, and if I insisted that they be done at Atomic, I'd have to pay to have it towed there. By the time I went to bed I was sure it was a dumb idea to go with that car.

I resolved to stick to my budget limit, insist on a test drive, and that I would say I needed 24 hours to think/pray about it before I accepted any car no matter if all signals were GO.

Then yesterday morning, before I finished my prayer time, Ike called to say that his mechanic who had connected him to every car and truck he had bought all his adult life, had told him of one that was available as a private sale. A Toyota Echo owned by a couple with two cars, were ready to give one up because the husband can't drive any more.

Ike gave me Fay's number. When I called her we hit it off just fine, I promised to come for 2 pm to see it. When Ike found out he wanted to meet me there, and he also made plans with Barry from church, who used to teach mechanics at university. We would take this Toyota Echo to Barry's and have him look it over.

[Ike and I both turned in at the wrong address, but it turned out to be someone I knew - we're 3rd cousins! so we visited while Ike went to find the correct address. When he came back I followed him to the right place and Faye was waiting for us outside. Her red Toyota Echo was in the parking lot so we could examine it, and Ike asked if we could take it for a test drive to Barry's place. We took it there.

Barry is getting older and moved slowly, but he showed us a number of testing tools he had in his 2 car garage. (The other car was a super shiny black boxy car with 1938 on the license plates!)

Fay was quite pleased with all the things Barry pointed as in excellent condition! (She has had it completely serviced every summer at Ens Toyota dealership). He showed us how to remove tree sap on the car's body, and how to polish the headlights so they were extra bright. He checked to make sure there was a suitable spare in the trunk. Everything was just great!

Now in the morning I had called Mike the manager at Atomic to say that I had given up on the Ford, but had another offer I was going to see. He said that one of the mechanics, whose mother-in-law had just died recently, had brought in her car to show me. There was still time before 5pm, so I went to see it as well.

Hmm?! Such a lovely cobalt blue! A 2007 Cobalt, in excellent condition. Bigger than Fay's Echo and newer by 2 years, but he was asking a full $5000. I've decided though to let that one go, and stick with Fay's faithful Echo.

As soon as I'm finished here, I'm going to arrange to complete the sale and bring the Echo home. Then empty the Buick of my personal stuff, park it in front of my house and put a sign on it. (I think I'll try for $2300 first, because it does look quite handsome and sedate.)

That's how far this saga goes to this moment.

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