Time for a New Car?
- I was really quite groggy when I got up this morning. Despite getting two 9-hour nights of sleep over the weekend, I don't feel like I actually slept very well, so I guess I didn't get enough sleep, or enough good sleep, last night, or something. I was rather dreading going in to work out, but I packed up my bag and headed out determined to do it all the same.
So I get down to my car, start it up - and the battery light comes on. And stays on.
I know from the last time this happened that the battery light means bad things. I remembered to turn off my stereo, and I drove to work, and sent out mail asking for recommendations for a place to take my car. The near-consensus was to just take it to a little service station across the street from Apple. So I did that, they checked it out, and told me that my alternator was dead. What could I do? I had them replace it (and also give me an oil change, since I needed one).
This is something like my third alternator in three years. The first one I figured went dead because it was either a dud, or it was improperly installed, so I'd managed to get my garage back in Wisconsin to cut me a deal on the replacement. But, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me: Clearly my car has some sort of problem with the electrical stuff somewhere, since this is way too many alternators for this span of time.
If I haven't mentioned it already, I sense other impending problems with my car: The brakes are a little jumpy, which probably means new brake pads in the future. And my cooling system has been running hotter and hotter over the last few years, and fixing that could be a real hassle, as in "real expensive". Any one of these problems would be fine: I could cope. The car's 12 years old, after all. But all three at once, on top of recently buying new tires, and the rusty body, suggests that maybe it's time to buy a new car.
At the party yesterday, John said he definitely thinks I should buy a new car. I think this is largely because I have a much lower tolerance threshold for the kind of car I'm willing to drive. I've been hoping that I could push the old clunker another year or two, but it's starting to look like that might not be the best choice. And my Mom says that Honda Civics can be gotten for under $10 grand for the basic model out where she is. So either that, or something marginally better than that - which is all I really need - should be in my range.
Of course, I'd have to spend the time looking for something, and decide if I want to take a chance on a used car, and so forth. Sigh. And I'd have to figure out if I want to buy it outright or pay installments - as far as I can tell, if I earn more interest in the bank than I'd pay on a car loan, then I should pay installments. That would be weird, though. I hate paying interest, on principle.
Well, at least I got the immediate problem resolved promptly. Pretty good, for me.
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