Car trouble

[drscott]

Since I left home at 18 to go to school in Boston, I never needed to own a car until I left there for British Columbia in '89. I flew into Seattle, stayed in a Motel 6 near the airport (and did my daily running along the Green River where the eponymous serial killer left his victims), and bought my first car, an '86 4WD Toyota Tercel wagon, at a dealership near Lake Union in Seattle. I drove it up to Vancouver and eventually registered it in BC, giving up my gorgeous Mount Rainier plates. I drove that car into the bush, over mountains, back and forth across the country twice, down to California, and finally sold it to a dealer who had bought one of the lots I sold when I subdivided my land on Bowen Island. I never had a minute of downtime with that car.

When I moved to California in '97, I bought a '94 Geo Prizm (a clone of the Toyota Corolla from the same assembly lines at the NUMMI joint venture plant in Fremont.) It, too, has been trouble-free, with one exception: the starter motor/solenoid. I've had it replaced twice, and yesterday when I went to start the car to go to the gym, it just clicked at me. Having been through this twice before, I repeated the diagnostics and tried jumpstarting it. Nothing; same problem. The part is buried so deeply in the engine area you can't even get to it to whack it with a hammer, which sometimes fixes dead spot problems long enough to keep it running. So during dinner time the tow truck driver arrived in one of those huge flatbed tow trucks, turned on his brilliant landing lights, and pushed my car out into the street and up to his truck. I had never seen the entire procedure, which involves 1) attaching a winch to the underbody hooks in front, 2) lowering the rear end of the flatbed so it forms a ramp; 3) pulling the car up the ramp, 4) attaching 4 corner cables to hold the car in place, 5) bringing the flatbed back up. All of this took place while I stood in the spotlight from the lamps, feeling like an extra in Close Encounters, knowing half my neighbors were watching this spectacle of noise and light in our normally dark, quiet neighborhood. The driver promised to drop my note to the mechanic and the key in the shop's dropbox, and when I called this morning it had, indeed, arrived. For $35 a hunky guy drives up to your door and uses a $100K piece of equipment to put on a 15-minute show, then follows your orders for another 15 minutes. Really a good deal.

Now I'm thinking of buying that great engineer's toy, a Prius. It's impossible to justify financially, and I would feel guilty about owning one when it would be better used by someone who drives much more than I do. But then I'm encouraging thereby production of more of them, so.... [goes into rationalization mode]

Comments

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Well, I've been exceptionally pleased with my Prius, especially the built-in GPS. Comfortable, affordable, and reliable.

If you don't want to wait several weeks for one, and don't want to pay more than list price for one ... join any credit union (I use Tech CU) and use their car-buying service. Most CU car buying services go through fleet purchasing managers. fleet purchases have separate allocations from consumer purchases ... at least for my Prius, they did. I paid less than invoice or street price for my car, and got it in 5 days, start to finish. They drove the new car up to the house, and took away my old car in exchange. Very slick, smooth and easy.

However ... if you really need to rationalize this ... grab Randy and discuss it with him. He knows more about cars than anyone except perhaps Click & Clack, and is VERY good at suggesting highly appropriate car models for people to look at. He can also tell you the repair history and cost history of every car currently being marketed in North America.

You're also welcome to test-drive my Prius some time if you'd like.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I'm annoyed that you don't seem to be able to get the GPS without a lot of other options I don't want which jacks up the price $3K. If I were a commuter, or visited client sites regularly as you do, I'd be willing for the satellite traffic data etc., but I'm not sure I want to pay that much for occasional use.

Thanks for the ideas -- going through the credit union is a good trick. I won't need financing, of course. And I'm two blocks from Sunnyvale Toyota, which allows test drives, but I appreciate your kind offer. And that Randy is pretty handy, hmm? I'm just toying with the idea for now....