Buy a Damn Car Already!

I head down to my car, start it up, and... the battery light comes on.

And then I see smoke coming from the hood.

I turn off the car, pop the hood, and see a flicker of flame die, and I say, "Gee, that must be the alternator, and I just fried another one."

So I wait a little while, grab the fire extinguisher from my apartment (just in case), and go down and start the car again with the hood open. No smoke, no fire, but the battery light is obviously on. But I figure I can drive to work.

I say to the car, "Dammit, you're supposed to limp along for another week or two!"

So I drive to work, and I figure I need to look at cars and buy one ASAP. I figure I have three options: I can go buy something today. I can see about getting my car fixed to limp along while I look at cars over the next week. (Maybe it would still be under warranty, maybe not. I feel a little bad because at this point it's pretty clearly a problem with my car, not with the repair work.) Or I could rent a car while I look at cars. I'm not entirely happy with any of these options.

So I go to my boss, JP, who's got a good head on his shoulders and talk it over with him. What ends up happening is I call the guy at Honda and agree to head over there around noon to look at cars. JP drives me there and helps me look, and act as a sanity check for me.

My basic feeling is that I want a Honda Civic DX hatchback. Stick shift, of course; I'm not an automatic transmission kind of guy. (Neither is Ceej, it turns out.) It's a little fancier than a CX, and I've been happy with my hatchback and figure it will serve me well. Its biggest problem is that it only comes in black, white, silver and red. I don't want black or white (who wants a car where you can see exactly how dirty it is), and I don't think I'm a red car guy (maybe if I ever buy a convertible). So it's silver, but I'm not terribly enthusiastic about it. (The 99 model also had a blue version, but they discontinued that color.)

I test drive it. It's peppier than my current car (an 87 Civic hatchback), but then almost anything would be. I work out the details of the price with the salesman, and I'm still a little amazed that I'm thinking of spending over $10K for any car!

But: While we're waiting for the guy to get the keys for the test drive, JP suggests that I should look at the Civic EX coupe. The difference? A better engine, power everything, and a sun/moon roof. (I'd be getting A/C and some sort of stereo in either case.) Plus, it comes in a pearl green which I like, and a kind of metallic light blue, which is also intriguing. So I figure: I'm here, let's take it for a spin.

I do so. The engine isn't significantly more powerful than the DX, but it is noticible. I examine the trunk, which seems pretty roomy (yes, the rear seats do pull down). It occurs to me that I'm not in college anymore; what do I really need a hatchback for? If I ever buy a new TV, it'd probably be too big to fit even that! (My 20-inch just barely squeezed into my present car.)

(By the way, ever wonder what the difference is between a coupe and a sedan? A coupe is a 2-door, and a sedan is a 4-door. No, I really didn't know that. Mainly, I think, because the word 'coupe' had never really registered on me until I started looking at cars last month.)

The price difference? About $1800. JP says he thinks I deserve to treat myself to a nicer car. He actually thinks I should consider an Accord, but that's really way more car than I need. 99.9% of the time no more than two people are in my car. Maybe in three or five or however many years, if I get married or (heaven forbid!) have kids, then I can consider getting a bigger car, but that's a long way off, at this point.

The upshot: No, I didn't buy a car today. I decided I needed at least one night to think it over. (My cow-orker Tom was a little surprised that I managed to resist buying something right then. However, I did have an ace-in-the-hole: I'd forgotten my checkbook.) I'll probably also call a couple other dealerships to see if they'll give me a better price. At any rate, by the end of the week, I'll likely have new wheels.

Oh, one last thing: It sounded unlikely that my present car would have much trade-in value. The salesman said very few cars over 10 years old have any value. JP said he thought I'd get a better deal by donating it and taking the tax deduction. So I'll probably do that.

On the way back, we stopped for gas at the station where I'd gotten my car fixed the last couple of times. We learned that their alternator warranty is for six months (amazing!), so I brought the car over. The guy tells me that he remembers last time he fixed it that there was a small oil leak above the alternator and that they'd have to fix that first if it needs a new alternator. I'm like, "Why didn't you tell me this last time when I would have cared?" So I instruct him to check it out and give me an estimate; if it's not too much (like, they have to replace a hose or patch something) then I'll probably do it. Otherwise, I probably won't bother.

I left the car there overnight. Tom gave me a ride home and said he'd give me a lift to work tomorrow morning. So that worked out.

I'm thinking that maybe my car really needed to go belly-up like this to kick me to actually do something, or at least not to stall any longer than necessary. As I think I've said before, I've been kind of down about getting rid of my car, which is one of my last links to my college years. We've got history, of a sense. Maybe I needed to get pissed at it to get it out the door. Maybe it just really wanted to make sure I know that it wants to go to auto heaven. I dunno. But it's time.

Tonight I watched last night's premiere of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a spin off of the venerable Law & Order, which I bailed on many years ago when the repetitiveness got to me, and Michael Moriarty left the series.

SVU is about the sex crimes ("special victims unit") arm of the NYPD, and includes Richard Belzer reprising his role as Detective John Munch from Homicide. I could almost see the wheels turning in the creator's mind: "Okay, we've seen a series about the homicide unit. What other unit would be interesting to focus on?" If the first episode is any indication, the difference in focus is that we'll see the reactions of victims who survived the crime. Although, some bit of me says, "You can't really get any more hard-hitting than murder when it comes to television drama." Of course, the challenge of a series like this is to try.

The first episode, involving a murdered taxi driver and a Yugoslavian war criminal, was okay, although the script was quite cheesy at times, especially the other detectives sniping at Munch. It also featured what to my mind was a fairly ludicrous courtroom scene. (Any scene that tries to make me chuckle but gets me to say, "Yeah, right," out loud is not a good sign.) I was also a little cheesed that they stooped to picking up a gag from the very earliest Homicide episodes and transplanting it to Munch. Uh, thanks for the lack of originality, guys.

The main cast is only six characters, and none of them are especially well-defined so far. But that's what additional episodes are for. You can probably guess that I wasn't especially impressed with the first episode; it was pretty erratic, and I'm doubtful that this series can really end up being different. But, I'll watch it for a while and we'll see.

I do love the Law & Order theme music, though!