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The expected phone call came this morning. The Honda is totaled. $1410.50 if I walk away from it, $1212.50 if I want to hang on to it and try to get it repaired myself. So now the questions are: how much will it cost to fix the important stuff (i.e., make it safe to drive at highway speeds and not be in the process of damaging itself farther, and fix the lights); and, how much car does $1400 buy me around Baltimore nowadays, how reliable and how double-bass-friendly (with "how much will Glenn like it" being, alas, a more distant concern)?
And they want my answer by Monday (which is also when the rental has to go back) or Tuesday. Er ... can I get an estimate that fast?
On the first question, y'all can't help much, of course (except by suggesting trustworthy garages that I can walk or take a bus home from, that might be able to look at the car today/Monday -- I'm going to phone Comprehensive Car Care and/or Three Brothers after I take my morning meds and feed Perrine).
But on the second question, have any of you got relevant, recent used-car-buying experiences to draw on (or have a hobby of trolling used car ads for fun, for that matter)?
(no subject)
I'd also make sure that whatever car you buy, you have checked out by a mechanic first to make sure that the damage is all regular wear and tear and cosmetic, and that the electric/drive train is intact. After 14 years, what finally caused Little Shitty to become unusable was a corroded electric system that was going to cost me 2k to repair.
I'd also stay away from Dodge neons, they don't seem to last long. We were having serious problems with the engine and alternator by year three with The Mistake's Neon. On the other hand, my VW Bug at 7 years is still in great shape, and hasn't required anything beyond routine maintenance and the usual age related repairs (new tires, new serpentine belt).
(no subject)
Thanks for the warning about Neons. I'd had a bad feeling about them before, but it was all gut -- no objective basis for it. Sounds like maybe my gut was right.
(no subject)
while in general i avoid used sports cars, our used camaro (required a few hundred dollars of repairs to pass inspection) lasted a long time, and hauled bricks, us, bags of stuff, con gear....but i dont usually recomend sports cars, as they get tough use.
consumer reports has a "reliability rating" for classes of used cars...
i find that Toyotas hold up very well.
and for cheap used cars? one place to check is to put an ad or look at ads, at a local retirement community. lots of folks get rid of their extra cars, or their primary cars once they cant drive.
and dealerships can be a surprisingly good place to ask for referals.....
(no subject)
Being able to carry the double bass and a passenger would be a Very Good Thing ... but I'm certainly not making it a requirement. If that happens it'll be as much luck as anything else -- I'm looking at vehicles with an odd number of doors first, just in case that works out, but I don't really expect to have a whole lot of options for $1,400.
I expect anything that other people recognize as a "sports car" to cost extra (even used) or to have been already run into the ground, but I'm perfectly willing to be surprised. I've gotten lucky before. (And have rolled critical failure on the car-shopping dice in the past as well.) Then again, when I think "sports car", what comes to mind is Triumph, Porsche, Alfa, and the Corvette Stingray. I don't think I'm getting a double bass into any of those on a rainy or cold day (though maybe I could in fair weather if I weren't planning on making any stops en route). ;-)
But if the small sample of modern cars I've driven lately is representative, a dozen years from now when I'm shopping for a car from 2007 I may need to limit myself to sports cars just to be able to find one I feel safe driving! I suspect that automobile designers have collectively gone mad. But I digress...
Anyhow, when I think "Camaro", "muscle car" or "sports car" is the second or third thing I think of, not the first. The first thought that comes to mind is, "American heavy-car mentality, probably from one of the decades when we did that really well, with a solid GM drive train a bit overpowered for the size of the car by today's standards". Which makes your observations about durability despite hard hauling use right in line with my mental image. Then I remember that they were considered "cool" (modulo the porcupine joke, of course) and supposed to look sporty and emphasize performance.
By the way, I drove a 1980 Mustang for a little while -- hardly the most "Mustang-y" of the Mustangs, but it still tried to be a Mustang -- and certainly wouldn't mind something like that. The one I drove (and, alas, wrecked *sigh*) was a 3-door (so the bass would probably slide right in) with an automatic transmission (I know, I know, but it was my parents' car and my Dad's feet had gotten too tender to deal with a clutch) and (I think) the 6 cylinder engine. (It may have been the four-banger, but I doubt it -- American manufacturers hadn't really figured out how to make a 4-cylinder worth driving by that time, IIRC. Anyhow, it wasn't the 8 that would have fit the whole Mustang Attitude, but it was still enough.)
Huh. I think one of the things that bugged me about the rented Fusion last week was that it seemed Ford had forgotten everything they knew about suspensions in the 1970s and 1980s. In a 1972 Marquis Brougham and the 1980 Mustang, and to a lesser extent in the 1988 Tempo, when you hit the brakes the car felt like it hunkered down to clutch the pavement more tightly. Three very different cars in all other respects, but they had that interaction of brakes & suspension in common. The 2007 Fusion did not feel like (what I think of as) a Ford.
I've had less than stellar luck with Toyota, but perhaps it was a non-representative sample ...
I hadn't thought of the retirement-homes angle. Thanks for suggesting that! And I'll continue to listen to what others have to say about Toyota in case it turns out that my experience was anomalous.
(no subject)
This means you get a "salvage title" which will impact future insurance and (fwiw) resale value.
Unless I really love the car I'd take the $1410.50
(no subject)
If you have a good mechanic that you trust to look at the car, try to see what it would take to fix the Honda. While the type of title you end up with if you keep it is important, if you are planning to drive it until it completely dies, then it's somewhat immaterial.
Another thing to think about is that any vehicle you can get for ~$1000 to $1200 is more than likely going to need the same amount spent on it over the next 2 to 4 years (depending on the amount you drive) in non-routine maintenance. That's going to be true of just about any make or model.
Janice
(no subject)