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The world's greatest beater

So son #1 graduated from U of I (in 4 years thank you son) and got himself a job (thank god).  But he can’t use public transportation to get him to where he needs to go when he needs to get there.  So it’s up to us to get him into his first money pit; a car.  Not just any car, he’s getting a beater, specifically my wife’s car that became a beater on my watch, and which she has dutifully kept pristine ever since…

…a prime 1997 Honda Accord EX wagon, thank you, that survived two sons learning to drive on it, and their using  it all through high school and college, making it one of the awesomest cars in existence just for it’s sheer tenacity to survive being hammered on.  Honda’s, say what you will, have a reputation for being reliable as an anvil.

What I was driving in my mind

We’re continuing a precedent set by my parents.  My first car was a beater.  My parents bought it for me when I was in my last year of college.  Going in, I had visions of tooling around in my super rad 1970 AMC Gremlin, living the high life.  I had this vision in my mind of what it would be.

What I was driving in the real world

The first thing you should know about this car named after a mythical imp that causes problems, is that the car was well named.  And to this day I am convinced the sheet metal was actually stampings made of compressed rust.  But hey, it was a hatchback with an easy four foot liftover height, and 2nd and 3rd gears were synchronized for easy shifting.

So I know a bad car when I own one, and if we’re rolling over the ’97 to Brian, we need to replace it.  Now, we also have son#2 two years back coming along nicely in school at ISU, and Mrs. T has pointed out we can’t off the Honda on son #1, and bail on son#2.  So we need a car that will be pretty much an equal value beater in about two years.

So we’ve been used car shopping.

I’ve only shopped for a used car once before in my life; when my trusty 6 year old1994 Honda Accord Wagon with a 5 speed manual became too much of a beast on the expressway-my middle aged left knee was failing me after an hour of constant rush hour shifting.  So I shopped for the same car with an automatic, and after much pain, waiting, a couple walk-outs, and finally following the sales manager back to talk to the real sales manager, we got it all hammered out.

In the age of the internet that’s all changed.  After combing inventories of several local area dealers we found suitable near beaters at three dealers and went off for some test drives of 2001 Accord Sedans.  Yeah I know an 8 year old car?  But I’ve had two Accords I put 240,000+ miles on each with no major work; timing belts, tires, regular fluid changes.  So my thinking is buy another one, pay to do the needed stuff, give it away in 2 years, and buy something else.

The target beater?

Countryside Honda, LaGrange IL.  I bought my first Accord here, an ’86 hatchback that drove like a sports car, hauled stuff like a truck and got 30 MPG regular as clockwork.  Since then they’ve blown me out the door once by raising their price after we agreed on the purchase.  The Accord there was a near beater, but had a dealer 30 day warranty.  I told them what the budget was and why.  They were unimpressed, because they were willing to sell me the car, but not discount it because well, see, this other woman has already put a deposit on it and yeah, let’s do a deal right now and she’s SOL.  Oh. no she isn’t, not because of me, sorry.

Honda of Lisle, Lisle IL.  I bought my ’94 Accord wagon/5spd manual new here.  They had one and were happy to discount it, sell it, get it off the lot.  Who in their right mind would buy a station wagon with 5 speed manual anyway?  I still buy the odd parts here, air filters, plastic trim the boys break, that kind of stuff.  The saleman showed us the car, but when his cell phone rang he was more interested in getting to his custy trading in a CRV on a new Pilot than talking to us, and given the condition of that Accord, he made a wise choice.  Nonetheless he said he would see us Friday when we would come in and buy it.  A heck of an assumptive close.

Pugi Mazda, Downers Grove.  DG has a sales tax rebate agreement with Pugi, and Sandack, Bedalov, and council are always saying buy Downers Grove, so I saw they had an Accord in the range.  It was in a bit dicier condition, and the tires are pretty noisy (Goodyear Assurance, probably their cheapest) but it was a one owner and had reasonable commuter miles on it.  Sales guy Chris was actually fairly laid back after he heard our reason for shopping.

There’s a ton of nice used cars lining Ogden Avenue, but not really knowing their history of owner abuse, I am pretty leery about buying used.  Mrs. T said if I could get the price down several hundred, we could use that to fix up any problems (it looked to have the original radiator, which in Hondas is a weak spot), and she reminded me I have enough backyard mechanic experience with Hondas that some of the easier stuff I could do myself.

Michelle from Pugi called me back today and said Chris was off today, and what could they do to close a deal today.  I said drop a grand off the price.  They didn’t do that, but she called back and said they could come pretty close, and they did.  So I said after I pick up Mrs. T from work tonight we will come over and do the deal.

We’ll see how this goes.  I’d like to keep the business here in DG, so I feel okay buying here.  Hey Ron if you’re reading this I dropped your name, said you specifically have asked that I buy local.  Maybe if it’s easy to buy one here, and the car dealers here stand behind what they sell, word will spread.

Anyone else buy a car in DG lately?  How’s it gone?  Easy?  Hard?

Postscript: Who are those guys and what did they do with the car salesmen? Talk about painless.  No extra tack-ons, none of the “well we have to charge this” stuff, the paperwork was printed and ready, ten minutes done.  Did we want to drive the car one more time to make sure everything was okay?  Yeah they pitched the extended warranty plans but they all do.  Vince and Michelle (and Chris) were all three polite, straight up, no-nonsense.  Thanks for buying a car from us, even a beater.  In two years we should do this all over again, and Pugi will definitely get extra consideration.

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