Car Shopping = FAIL

As mentioned before, I’m looking for a new car.

Yeah, I’m STILL looking.

I’m really not all that picky; my problem, over and over again, is that I get into a car and I’m just not comfortable. The issue is that I’m 6’4” (mostly torso) and broad-shouldered.

I just want something I fit in that’s reasonably fun to drive. Is that so difficult?

Legroom really isn’t a problem in most cars. It’s headroom. In some cases, I can’t physically position the seat in a way that my head is not grazing the roof. In others, the combination of my eye level being so high and the roof line being so low would require me to lean forward every time I’m at a red light to see the signal change.

Some cars’ seats are too narrow as well. I test-drove an Accord whose seats made me feel like I was getting a hug from a person with no forearms and sharp elbows. The contours didn’t really fit my contours.

The suck part is that I actually want a small- to medium-sized car (see “fun to drive” criterion above). The problem is that those cars don’t tend to come with power (i.e. potentially low-slung) seats as an option, which would be essential to my ability to drive them.

I can’t believe how frustrating this has become.

No Cash For This Clunker

Now that the house is almost officially sold (we close July 30th), it's time to put some of the proceeds toward actual grownup transportation.

Some background: I've owned only three cars in my life. I've paid less than $12,000 COMBINED for them. I've personally put around 375,000 combined miles on them. I think I've gotten my money's worth, thanks mostly to fortunate car choices and bang-up maintenance with the help of my dad.

Speaking of, Dad bought his first Ford Taurus in about 1996. He must have liked it, because he bought two more shortly thereafter. One of these, a 1994 sandy-bronze colored number, became my second car. It replaced my first--a 1982 Monte Carlo that was beyond pimp--after it developed a bit of a smoking problem.

That first Taurus lasted me almost five years (and 120,000 miles), after which I paid cash for a 1998 Mercury Sable (seen above). Not fancy, not impressive, but reliable as hell. Seven years later and I'm over 240k on the odometer.

At my best count, my immediate family has owned nine Tauri/Sables. We ALL have one right now. It's funny and sick at the same time, because they're great cars mechanically but none of us is necessarily proud of them.

However, as cars reach the end of their lifespan, little shit starts to nickel and dime you. For example, I've got a wheel bearing that's about to go, and the air conditioning has a leak that's not so slow anymore. I had the coolant hoses replaced a few months ago. Normal stuff, but each repair yields a question: how much more money do you put into a car that's not worth any money?

A solution started to materialize. The Car Allowance Rebate System is on the horizon. Known colloquially as "Cash For Clunkers", the program works like this: trade in your car that is a) no more than 25 years old; b) registered and insured to you for at least the past year; and c) gets no more than 18 mpg combined per new EPA standards. You then get $3500 toward a new vehicle if it gets at least 4 mpg more than your clunker, and $4500 if it gets at least 10 mpg more.

I looked up my Sable.

The EPA says it gets 19 mpg.

As in, 1 mpg too many.

Dammit.