A crash course in car shopping

It’s been a dismal week, from making arrangements for the oil-dripping corpse (I felt like I had just sent my poor horse off to the knackers) to doing frantic research on buying a new car to arranging for a car loan, etc.  All stuff that might normally be fun, but not when crunched into a three-day period.  (Besides, I had planned to drive my poor Esmeralda for at least another 3-5 years.  I liked that truck.  *sigh*)  Also, I hate driving unfamiliar cars, to the prospect of road-testing 5 new (i.e. expensive) cars in a day is giving me the heebie-jeebies.  Not to mention missing AIDS Lifecycle’s Day On the Ride on Saturday, for which I hope the idiot accumulates more bad karma.

Whining aside, I have made good progress.  I have identified four or five models that I want to look at:

• Toyota Prius
• Toyota Tacoma
• Honda Fit
• Mazda 3 hatchback
• Nissan Versa
• and possibly the Subaru Outback/Legacy/Forester, although none of those gets as good mileage as I’m looking for

I have arranged a loan at an attractive interest rate so I don’t have to take what the dealer gives me (paperwork should be arriving today), worked out my budget and what I can afford to pay (something in the 20-25K zone should be all right – hopefully on the lower end of that), read through the complete Consumer Reports book on how to buy a car, talked to an auto mechanic friend about reliability of different models, etc.

Still left to do:

• Join Costco (today) so I can check out prices in their auto purchase program
• Test drives (Saturday)
• Research prices on the top contenders, and decide what model I want based on that
• Call/fax dealers looking for prices (Sunday/Monday)
• Sign contract (Sunday/Monday/Tuesday, depending)
• Take delivery (sometime mid next week)

Needless to say, it’s going to be a busy week.  Hopefully I can get in some time for training.  I’m afraid weaving is right out.