Practical? Love?

It's a shame that in America we put so much pressure on our vehicles to speak for us. Or that they speak even when we want them to shut up. It made buying a car more of an event than it would be if it was simply about getting from point A to point B.

We started out by getting our rental car, an icky Cobalt that wasn't even properly cleaned. The fellow at Enterprise nearly threatened us into purchasing the extra insurance for $17.99 a day, which drove up the cost to nearly $45/day, which feels like highway robbery for a crappy car. Our insurance pays for $25 of it, but of course that means that we are stuck with Enterprise, whether we like it or not. As we were being strong-armed into the insurance, I felt like if we didn't get it, they were going to go over the car with a magnifying glass and charge us for something, anything, and get their money. It was icky.

Fortunately, the Volvo dealership was within walking distance, so we did just that. And we came this close to buying one. The XC-90, which has long been our 'dream car,' was the same as always--disappointing on the interior but exciting on the outside. I'm shallow and superficial, but I'd love to have it in my driveway. I'd love to experience my little fantasy life in it, where I'm someone who drives something kind of cool and sleek and dresses fashionably and maybe has one of those Collegiate pawprints on the back right corner. But the reality is that the interior is really very, very tight, and the rear row seems like it was designed for leg amputees. Even Walter's Ethiopia-skinny legs would be squished if the middle row of seats was not pushed forward as far as it goes. And it requires a lot of climbing and pulling levers to get in and out. But it does seat everyone in our family, which is practical. The inside feels a bit antiquated, but then again, Volvos aren't really known for their extremely forward design, so there's no huge surprise there. We test drove two wagons as well, but both felt a bit old (they were a 2005 and a 2006) and both had some miles on them, and ergonomically they weren't working well. One turned out to have a broken seat lowering mechanism, which put Kerry's 5 ft 11 inch height almost through the roof (and we know from experience that one little issue with a seat moving mechanism costs many hundreds of dollars), and then the steering wheel was so low that it was in his lap and was in its highest position. So those were stricken from our list.

Our next visit was to drive a Prius, and I have to say for myself, as soon as I was driving, I felt like I had a hands down winner. Triple the gas mileage of the XC, a very new and modern feeling interior and features (nifty touch screen), more legroom and breathing room, smooth and quiet feel. The price was slightly lower, the car is brand new to the XC's 3-ish year old and 38k miles age, and financing might be slightly better. So while it does have the rather large negative that it doesn't seat an entire person in our family, I think for purely practical reasons it's our best option.

What we don't care that much about is making a statement. And this car is pretty self-referential, self-centered even. It has an entire screen devoted to tracking itself and congratulating itself on its fuel efficiency--real time dynamic graphs of miles per gallon, then five minute averages of fuel efficiency. That's great, but I don't need to see it all the time, think about it all the time, and pat myself on the back for being holier than thou or thriftier than thou or greener than thou or whatever else. And given that we're buying this car because someone in our family ran smack into the back of another someone while they weren't even distracted by an electronic device, we really don't need one more thing to put our eyes on obsessively other than the road.

But there it is. At 6:30 p.m., Kerry called to tell me he had decided on the Volvo. He was waiting to hear back from them about whether they had met our price requirement. They did. Then they kept calling and wanting him to come over and give a $500 deposit, even though we weren't clear on the finance rate, which wasn't terribly low because it is a used car.

Then I went to my cookie exchange Christmas party, loaded up with the 6 dozen cookies I threw together starting at 5:00 this afternoon. While I was having a few glasses of wine and loading my gullet with sugar, Kerry seems to have done a 180. I think he got annoyed by the pressure tactics of the Volvo dealership, and he reported some "buyers remorse." Plus he had finally gotten a call back from the husband of a tennis friend who works for a Toyota dealership (not the one where we did the test drive). They had worked out a price and financing, they had a black Prius in stock with the features we wanted--actually no one did...we wanted a totally stripped on, but no dealership around here has that--and Kerry was able to get pre-qualified for the financing we'll need and they have the car on hold for us. We pick it up tomorrow at noon.

I think it's going to be a good choice. I am embarrassed to admit that I've already put 15,000+ miles on my car since we bought it in May, so having something that doesn't cost us quite as much to operate is a good move. We've spent our share on car repairs over the years, including a series of $3000+ repairs on Subarus at times in our lives when we really, really, really didn't have that kind of money to throw at a vehicle that was letting us down. So having a car known for reliability and longevity, with a lengthy warranty, and without a past history is really comforting. Gas is our third largest expense each month, after our mortgage and food, so anything that keeps it down some, especially now that gas prices are so comparatively low, is going to have a positive impact on our budget. Imagine filling up for under $20 and getting to work and back for two weeks! Then there's me, filling up twice a week much of the time because of one thing or another. You know how it is--it's always something: picking up the kids in Lynchburg, going to a play or a museum in town, a LLL meeting on the opposite side of town, running over to West Broad to buy this car tomorrow, playdate at a far-flung friend's house. Even when I swear I'm going to cut back, something seems to come up that guzzles a pile in a short amount of time. I am not virtuous girl with a small carbon footprint ;)

I want to say that today was very educational. It about drove me nuts because kids and car shopping don't go well together, but seeing us weigh our passion versus our practicality, listening to us blather on about finance rates, the potential differences between new and used rates, the various financing options (dealer, bank, credit union, different percentages of down payment and how they might affect interest rate), noticing ways to negotiate with a dealer because of flaws or issues with a car, seeing how you have to be proactive about addressing issues you see, dissecting the hard sell tactics of people working on a commission, and comparing miles per gallon and the impact of different types of engines and energy systems on highway and city driving were all good ways to let them see what goes into a big financial decision in a family. Ollie was a chatterbox, giving his opinions, observations, asking questions, and generally just being himself. Woe to the salespeople who will deal with him in his adulthood.

And I don't know if I wrote about this yesterday, but it's very sobering to think that Walter and Ollie will likely be driving this Prius one day. Barring any unforeseen disasters, this car will be passed down to them in fewer than 6 years. By then, when Kerry has filled it completely with dirty, inside-out gym socks and coffee cups and junk mail (and some important mail, too) and refillable water bottles now growing funky mold, it will be the gross car of the family, and hopefully it will still be chugging along, despite the inevitable problems that seem to beset the things we drive. There was the Volvo with the rear gate that didn't latch for almost 5 years and that flapped around whenever you hit a bump, the same Volvo that had almost no AC and where the floor carpeting had to be excised because someone spilled something on it and then dropped a book on it and it all mildewed and was making people sick. There was the Saturn where you could never take the key out or put the car in park if you ever wanted it to start again. The Volvo with no side molding because Walter had picked it out when he was three and it never fit back on again. And the floor mats that floated down into a storm drain because I didn't get them back into the car in a timely fashion after power washing them with a hose.

Anyway, I hope that this new car will be treated with the kindness and respect it deserves. It didn't ask to be adopted by our family, and we owe it some decency. Whenever we get something nice and new and pretty, we promise ourselves up and down that we are going to be different this time. Who knows, maybe we'll really mean it!