cars - and why i think god hates me this weekend
so, it started ok. I decided to buy a car. a civic, 2-door manual 5 speed. I got pricing through USAA for the LX model and the cute little car will cost me a total of $14,463. PLUS, the dealership in College Park has a lifetime, nationwide, warantee that covers all sorts of things that I have fixed on my current car - shocks, clutch, fly wheel, axels, engine block, oil pan, alternator, master relay, master cylinder, starter - you get the picture.
I called the dealer, the said "yes, we've got that car in stock. I said ok I'm coming for a test drive. I get there - no car. all the 2-doors are automatics. THe only manual is a 4-door model that I'm not interested in considering.
and then the fun begins.
they start trying to get me in a different car that they DO have. Except I don't like 4-door cars, and I HATE automatic transmissions.
in the mean time they are trying to get the model I want, but telling me it's probably not going to happen. I did a search on cars.com last night and there are litterally 8 cars that fit my specs within a 30 mile radius of my house. EIGHT! (good jesus lord, why do i want the model that has scaricty right now?). That number goes up to 13 if I expand my radius to 75 miles.
There is a dealership called pohanka in fredricksburg that says they have the car I want, but a) I really don't want to drive to fredricksburg, and b) I'd really like a lifetime, nationwide warranty on my car
So, there are plans to call Honda Corporate tomorrow and tell them to send the car I want to the dealership I want to buy it from. We'll see if it happens.
In the mean time I was suppose to drive out there today when I got done with work to really test-drive the 4-door model. But this morning I hit a curb and got a flat tire - that I couldn't deal with until 3pm. I called the tire place at 1pm and they said they were busy and couldn't help me. I called at 3pm and a different guy told me to bring it buy. I get my store manager to show me how to change a tire (since my mom skipped that lesson when I was growing up "just call a tow truck") and drive to Roslyn and my tire place. I get lost - somehow because it goes with my day (crazy busy morning and 600 customers before 1pm), become hysterical, find my way back to the tire place 1 hour before they close and they don't have the tire I need to replace in the store (because my car is crazy special with the tire sizes). They do have a different brand that they generously put on my rim after making a tire exchange that cost less than the credit they were due to give me by about $20. so now my car is three wheels normal, 1 extra special and they got a handy $20 bonus on top of that because they aren't allowed to pay me for the pleasure of changing my tire.
i have re-scheduled the test drive for tuesday, but I'm not really psyched about the 4-door model and it's longer which would make parallel parking more difficult in this city. Then again, the 2-door model is also longer than my current car and has a crazy large blind spot when you're trying to change lanes and it's something I'd have to learn to work around. arg - cars.
oh - and my current car? needs abt $500 worth of work. the blower motor is breaking, the wiper motor is breaking, and the cable to the speedomiter is breaking. There's also oil seeping from the engine block that my mechanic isn't too concerned about from my telephone description but they would like to look at sooner rather than later...
yeah.