vacation, car problems again
Cool. I just had my vacation time approved at work. Since Independence Day is on a Sunday, they're giving us July 5th off as a paid holiday. I'm going to use vacation days for Tuesday-Friday; that way I'll only use four days instead of five. I don't really have any plans to go anywhere; in fact, I hope I don't, so I can make a concerted effort toward getting my room ready for cartooning. That will be the week's project.
In other news, my car has once again decided to die. Every few months, it likes to commit suicide again and force me to put another couple hundred dollars toward its health insurance plan. My mechanic's guess is that something is draining the battery. At this point I feel like just doing whatever is necessary to make it driveable again, sell it to someone "as is" with no guarantees, and just get a new car. I mean, it's 10 years & a few months old, has 103,000 miles on it, and didn't have any major problems until a few years ago when I came home from college. So, we've certainly gotten good use out of it. But I want reliable transportation, and want to know that I won't be late to work because of a car that won't start or won't have heat because of a detached vacuum hose.
Fortunately, I have a decent amount of money in savings that can serve as a fairly significant down payment, but as far as car loans I'll have to do some research. I'm pretty sure I want a Hyundai Elantra, but I won't know for sure until I test drive one. Hyundai uses good engines now, and has 10-year, 100,000-mile warranties, which is A Very Good Thing. Also, the Elantra is only about $2000 more than the Hyundai Accent, but you get a lot of extra oomph and features for that two grand. I'd prefer to just buy one new rather than mess around with "pre-owned" or "demo" or any other synonyms for "some guy drove this to Montana and back several times" vehicles. I want this car to last at least ten years (as the current one has), so I'd rather have one effectively fresh off the assembly line, hopefully to ward off those little "surprises" that tend to crop up in used cars. Lord knows the current car has given me enough surprises in the last two years; I don't need any more.
3 Comments:
"Hyundai uses good engines now, and has 10-year, 100,000-mile warranties, which is A Very Good Thing."
Mr. Using Martha Stewart Phrases
Mr. wants to go to prison
-Justin
And yes, I will be buying an automatic. :-| The EPA gas mileage estimates for the Elantra are exactly the same for 5-speed manual and 4-speed automatic: 24 city, 33 highway. That's right, quas, they're the same. Of course, that's just an estimate, and the question arises whether I'll do mostly city or highway driving. I imagine the answer to that question will change over the next 10 years, but for now I do considerable city driving just to get to the highway, because Elyria is a ridiculous mish-mash of two-lane roads with too much traffic and red lights every 500 feet. But unless I live with my parents for the rest of my life, that shouldn't weigh too heavily.
Update: thankfully, this time it only cost me $19.22 to get the car running again. I didn't get to talk to the main guy, but the receipt says "checked charging, cleaned battery connections." If they were just dirty, that might explain why it would start after a few tries (that is, until Tuesday morning when I'm leaving for work, of course). It sat overnight in the mechanic's parking lot and started fine this morning, so something must have fixed it.
I customized an Elantra at Hyundai's web site and requested a quote, just to see how it compares to the MSRP and so I can start planning if that's the route I want to take. Unfortunately, the nearest Hyundai dealer is in North Olmsted, but it's only about 25 minutes away, so that's not too bad. I should be getting a response from them today, then I can schedule a test drive. I think I'll go to the credit union on Saturday and see how their car loans work.
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