So, shopping on craigslist for a used car on a very small budget is ....quite an experience. After a couple days of intensive searching (because we've learnt that all the good stuff goes quickly - sometimes just hours after being posted!), we've got a new addition to the family fleet:
A '97 Honda Civic! Yay!
It's a little beat up and will need some work done but we think we done good for what we paid. The budget was about $3000, we got it for $2300 and repairs will probably cost about $500-700 ish. Not bad for San Jose.
Honestly though, if we could have afforded something more for less hassle we definitely would have paid it because the search was annoying and definitely left us with some stories to tell :/
The first car we went to look at was a '95 Honda accord. It looked good on the outside but that was because the guy selling it had an autobody shop and had repainted it so he could sell it for more. It was about our price range and Char was optimistic because she thought the seller was Asian - and we all know that the stereotypical asian dude ALWAYS keeps his car in good shape. lol. Uh, Char's racial meter via the phone sucks because the guy was Hispanic. There's nothing wrong with that. I just thought it was funny how she totally could not tell through the phone. Anyhoo, we ask a couple of questions and every time we touched on something we thought was wrong with the car, the guys would start with, " Uh yeah, about that....." He had apparently bought it at an auction and fixed it up. While that's fine and the outside looked brand spankin' new, things were broken and there were holes in the seats.The engine also made this loud squealing noise before rumbling to life rather reluctantly ("Yeah, about that.....my mechanic says that's normal for that kind of car." Seriously? Do you think we were born yesterday??). We took it around the block and it was loud as heck. So yeah, no. 1 car down, and the search continues.
The next car we looked at was this Mazda being sold by an African American dude. Char thought he sounded Mexican on the phone. That's phone 2, Char 0. He came rumbling in on his harley and was super nice....at first. he was up front about some major things the car needed and as we took it around the block, it was loud but not as loud as the first one. We chatted and apparently he used to be a fireman (it made me think of you Queena) and was injured and taking fire classed at community college. Now, it's the stupidest thing but I always feel that men in uniform like firemen, EMTs and policemen are less likely to scam me....it's probably not true but that's how we've been conditioned - to always trust uniformed officers (urm, except for the cops back home. with them you always know that they won't even bother trying to scam you; they just ask for the bribe upfront). So when he mentioned the fireman thing along with the (vague) honesty he showed about the car's major defaults, I was more inclined to trust him about the car than say, car guy #1 from the day before. He also mentioned that he used to be a mechanic for Toyota and we could obviously see that he was working on several classic cars at his place (He had a very sweet mustang he was restoring).
So it's all good. Until he starts being inappropriate. It starts off small - a comment about us being "beeautiiiful girls from Maaaalaysiiiiaaaa" and went on to "do you guys date" and "Have you ever dated a black guy". Urm....what??? He then insistently gives me a ride on his harley (because I said I don't like motorbikes and had never been on one and I figure, eh, what the heck) which was nice of him but then he mentions that I can now say that my first "ride" was with a black man and he tells us to add him on facebook and that he wants to take us out to dinner and we can ride with him and his motorbike buddies. EXCUSE ME ?!? WTH?!? yeah, we tried to leave so many times but he just went on and on and on. general conversation is fine but we've only just met you like 15 mins ago! Innuendos and questions about our dating lives and weird overtures of friendship? So NOT okay! Then he calls char the next day to chat. Urm. As interested as we were in the car, this dude was seriously creeping us out so we cut our losses and lied and hopefully we'll never see/hear from him ever again.That's like 2 hours wasted.
Next dude we met with for a '96 honda was suuuuuuuper shady. once again, Char thought he was Asian....he was Mexican. lol. Phone 3, Char 0. It looked alright but he was very pushy. Before we had even gone around the block completely, he pretty much asked us for the entire amount in cash upfront right then and there and kept telling us that he had so many ppl lined up for it. He also didn't want us to check the car out at a mechanic's and when asked about the pink slip and bill of sale, he took out some crumpled pieces of paper from his pocket. Urm? It wasn't even his car. He was so pushy and shady, we said no then went grocery shopping. lol. He later called Char and was like, when you wanna come and see the car and Char was like....urm, I just saw it. i wanted to take it in to a mechanic tomorrow. He quickly hung up on her.
Finally, we end up at yesterday's car experience which was actually relatively painless and more legit than any of the others. We checked it out, test drove it and brought it to the mechanic. There are a couple of major defects that will require work (but we kinda knew it would based on how much we were paying for it), it's a little scratched up and has really tacky zebra floor mats (we're tossing those. eww.) and they totally lied about the mileage (it was still less than every other car we'd seen) but the guy was super nice, pretty up front about things and was very patient when we brought it to be checked out and a few hours later, my sis is the proud owner of her first car! :) This whole buying a used car is a huge hassle though. I can totally see why a lot of ppl like to go to dealers. But beggars can't be choosers and we managed to luck out fairly quickly in the search for transportation. Man, was that exhausting!
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