don’t panic

My family is in a unique situation… Well, unique to us at least. For the first time, we are in the market for a car, possibly, hopefully, a new car.

Our old car was a Toyota Camry (93) inherited from my folks. It’s been an okay car, made especially okay by the fact that it was given to us for free! Like most older cars, a vehicle’s reliability is a factor of it’s age, it’s previous problems, how you drive and maintain it, and dumb luck. Recently, our Camry reached over a critical threshold. You see, it suddenly started leaking oil (never a good sign), and coolant, the AC stopped working (bad, very bad in SoCal), it needed new CV boots, and most painful, something mysteriously known only as the EFM Control. Some things you can do without, like the AC (wince!). And some things you can get by on (throw in some oil each week). But whatever that mysterious EFM gizmo is, it turned on the dreaded “CHECK ENGINE” light, and when that happens, you know your in trouble because only a tech at the dealer (or a serious car geek) knows where to find the switch to turn that off. It’s just a light, but it’s a light that won’t let us get our car smogged while it’s on. The dealer wants about $600 to flick that switch. Along with a number of other maladies (one of which is a new head gasket – cha-ching!) we’d be looking at about a minimum of $2500 dollars to renew a car that will still be old and without AC. The Bluebook value of the auto is only $1050, so…

Time for a trade in!

All this is to say that we finally took the family to look at what new cars are going for these days. A new car would sure be nice in that we could use that $1050 as part of the down, and bask in the luxury of a truly reliable vehicle for the first time since we were married.

Having never been in the market for a new car, but having heard horror stories from enough people to be forewarned, I listened to the sales rep who had swooped down on us with a grain of salt. This was very wise, since it is the job of said sales rep to sell you the most expensive car they possibly car, with as many bells and whistles as they can con out of you in the process. Mind you, this wasn’t some shady used car side lot, this was the dealer, so I expected a little more decorum. And to be fair, I’m sure there was more. But sure enough, as soon as he had asked the obligatory “friendly” questions and knew what I could honestly afford, it was all about standing me in front of the highest priced options package for that model. I couldn’t believe how many times I had to tell the guy that I really wasn’t interested in aluminum alloy wheels and a spoiler…

I’m a practical guy. I need a practical car. For the most part, I don’t care what it looks like. I do care what milage it gets. I do care that my wife (a big gal) can drive it comfortably. And I do care what it costs. This last may seem obvious, but it’s not. We’re a one-job family. That’s actually getting rarer and rarer in SoCal, and almost impossible if you want a house. Sure, I do side jobs when our daughter’s schedule allows, but nothing stable. You can’t count on freelance to pay the bills. So money is tight as it is. The other car was free and clear. No cost save for insurance and registration (and of course gas), so adding another $250-$350 a month to our budget is pretty rough… maybe impossible. We’re still working on that.

But back to the cars. Why can’t a dealer just listen to what you are actually saying you want instead of what they think you really want? Whatever.

But the real shock came when I started looking at milage. Our other car is a 1986 Honda Civic. This is a truly great car. We’ve had very few problems, and it still gets decent mileage… Astounding mileage when you consider the fact that only three cars out of the whole lot had better gas ratings than my two-decade-old clunker. And who gets what the sticker advertises? Nobody. Which meant that aside from the Prius (which is priced right out of my range) I drove in with the most fuel-effecient vehicle of the bunch. Bummer. I spoke with the Service rep about that and she told me that car makers traded mileage for good service and reliability. Yeah? Whatever you say, but why is it then that I’m trading in my newer, more “reliable” car and keeping the older junker which still runs fine? I’m sure my sales guy would tell me something about performance and going zero to 60 in 4.5 seconds.

I’m not drag racing. I’m taxiing my kid to school and hauling groceries.

So I took a bunch of notes, ignored a lot of BS, checked my credit and picked up some brochures. They were mysteriously “low” on the brochures for most of the lower-priced and better milage cars I looked at, and I think the sales guy was close to forbidding me from even writing anything down. What’s up with that? I guess they want you to either make a snap decision, or go home with just a warm-fuzzy feeling about how cool you’d look driving a luxury sedan.

Bah! I’ll do my own research and get the car that makes the most sense.

The runners are:

The Corolla.
The Yarris.
The Matrix.

The Scion xA
The Scion xB

If we go with a maker other than Toyota, we probably can’t get Bluebook value for our trade in. Not positive on that, but likely. I’d love a Prius, but the price is just too steep.

Comments anyone?

I was reading a local news site this week when I came across an article talking about how they found about a hundred syringes washed up on one of our beaches. It turns out the pen-like needles belonged to the military, and are the same kind that can be used as an antidote for some poisons, including nerve agents that could be used in a bioterrorist attack. Conspiracy theories aside for the moment, it made me think of another situation regarding needles that my family recently went through.

My wife is diabetic. Once a day, she needs an injection of insulin and uses needles for delivery. We have a big “sharps” can into which we drop these used biohazards, and recently the can reached capacity and needed to be emptied.

Being responsible people, we didn’t want to just dump these things into the dumpster where they could potentially get picked up by someone else and used for drugs, or possibly injure some homeless guy (of which we have aplenty) just diving for cans. So we called our local pharmacy (which by the way, sells the sharps containers and the needles) and asked them if we could bring the syringes in for proper disposal. It turns out they can’t take them, but suggested the local hospital.

Feeling slightly jaded and a little miffed, I called the hospital and asked where I should go to dispose of dirty syringes. I mean, after all, the hospital must have a way to do this since they are generating these en mass. Not only did the lady at the front desk have no clue, no one knew what to do with them. After checking with several doctors and various staff personnel, the operator came back on the line and said she was told that we should just put them in some other container (like a milk carton) and throw them in the trash. This is my hospital. Egads!

Dejected and sore in the ear from waiting on hold, we did as the hospital instructed. But I couldn’t help but feel a little depressed that even after considerable effort I wasn’t able to do the right thing. There’s so much talk in San Diego about being friendly to our environment, yet we regularly dump raw sewage into our bay and have absolutely no program or procedure for the public to properly dispose of biohazards. Very sad.