I Suck At Buying A Car

Today, Karen and I (and our baby daughter, Briana) have another addition to the family. That addition: a brand new car. Cue Bob Barker and the Barker's Beauties (from Price is Right) revealing a new car behind one of the doors. Unfortunately, I suck at buying a car.

A while ago, I had donated my first car (a purple Saturn) to charity. Luckily, Karen had her car. So it was not like we were stranded without any means of transportation or anything. We were able to make do with the one car. We would just have to plan accordingly to make sure the car was available when we needed it. It was not a big deal going down to one car. In addition to the environmental benefits of using just one car, there was also the financial aspect in terms of insurance.

With Briana, however, Karen and I decided that we had to get another car. So now, we are a two car family again. Of course, part of Karen's concern was that she did not trust her current car with Briana. And really, having the second car does make things easier especially with Karen returning to work shortly. Before, I would wake up to drive Karen to the subway station, only to pick her up when she returned. Although it was doable, adding Briana to the mix would have made things a little more complicated.

In a way, having two cars is nice. We don't have to rely on one another as much in terms of travel. Either one of us can just go when we want to go (as long as one of us has Briana, of course). And as much fun as it is to coordinate going places, sometimes the feeling of total independence is nice. The drawback of having two cars, however, is the enlarged carbon footprint. For someone who is concerned about the environment like myself, that does perturb me.

Of course, you would also think that my environmental concerns would lead me to purchase a nice greener car. Nope. We got a minivan. I'm just kidding. We did not get a minivan... or a Hummer... or any other type of gas guzzling behemoth. This year, I was championing the purchase of the Nissan Leaf, which is an all electric vehicle. Sadly, the Leaf is not available for mass distribution yet. With Karen's return to work looming on the horizon, the Leaf's availability did not work with our schedule.

Consequently, I wanted to champion the next best thing: Hybrid technology. I'd also champion hydrogen fuel cells if the infrastructure in Massachusetts were available for cars running on hydrogen fuel cells. Damn these oil companies and their strangle hold on the American public. As much as I would have loved to own one, I avoided the Toyota Prius. My friend (Hot Amy) has one and I did not want to copy her... even though I think she stole my idea in the first place to get one. Plus, I was not sure I could convince Karen to buy a Prius considering how Toyota has been having recall issues with their vehicles.

So I started to champion the newly redesigned Honda Insight. (And in case you are curious, I actually think the Insight was better to drive than the Prius.) With the Nissan Leaf off the table, I really wanted to get the Honda Insight. And don't get me wrong, the car was good. Unfortunately, I thought there were some things that could and probably would be improved with newer models of the car. (Perhaps I was expecting a "wow" factor that I just did not receive.) So the Insight was likewise off the table.

With the cars that I thought would help relieve me of my oil dependence off the table, I had to rethink the game plan in terms of buying a new car. What Karen and I eventually decided was to choose a car that was comfortable enough for our family yet environmentally friendly enough by yielding a higher miles per gallon than other cars. (It turns out, of all the cars on the market, there is a small percentage of regular cars get over 30 miles per gallon... odd.)

Anyway, whether it was due to great salesmanship or not, Karen and I ended up buying a new Honda Civic. As a side note, we have come to find out that the salesperson (Sean) who sold us the car is no longer employed by the car dealership. We coulbe possibly be the last people to buy a car from him at the dealership. Of course, we may have also been the only ones who purchased a car from him as well because it was his first day on the job there.

Regardless, what ultimately attracted both of us to the Civic was the roomy interior (for Briana's car seat) and the miles per gallon. Hopefully, we'll enjoy having the car and I won't have to second guess or doubt myself about whether I made the right choice for our family and the environment.

It's also kind of funny now how it's already started: the perceived need/expenses that accompanies having a newborn child. Baby needs a new pair of shoes... or in this case... a new car.