Cars cars cars.
Aug. 31st, 2024 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nosrednaydujI neglected to blog when my daughter was in a double rear-end accident a few weeks ago, with her car in the middle. Nobody was injured, but it doesn't take much to total an 11-year-old car. So she was without a car and we agreed to help buy a newer car for her.
Of course she has no time ever to do anything. Including, it turns out, renew her drivers license. Hopefully the new car can be registered in her name despite the expired drivers license, and she promises to just renew it online, rather than getting a new photo, which is what she had hoped to do, which is why she put it off.
We thought we were going to try to go buy a car on Wednesday afternoon, but it turned out she had like one hour of free time instead of the entire afternoon, and it wasn't a good day for me work wise, so we put it off until today. She had to rearrange some of the things she wanted to do, but she and I got to the car dealership right after they opened, and I had a clipboard with the used cars we were interested in all printed out and that makes the car dealers less pushy. I did have a conversation in which he said "what's the most important thing to you in a car" and I said "I want to look at these cars on my clipboard I don't want to have you match me with my dream car" and that was the end of that, and he went and got some of the cars that were on my clipboard. Unfortunately, some of the cars were at the dealership across the street (owned by the same company, so he didn't mind that we wanted to go over there, and this whole business where they don't negotiate anymore is actually really convenient, you just say I want this car and you write a check). So we had to trek across the street after we looked at the cars at the first place.
The place across the street was much busier, and so we had to wait for a salesperson, I guess because it was more than an hour later and not as close to opening time. But we looked at a car and we bought it. Sadly, the actual buying of it took two hours. There was a lot of sitting around while he xeroxed drivers licenses and more sitting around while he figured out if we were eligible for the various incentives (it's an electric car, surprise), which we were if Jocelyn was the owner rather than somebody like me who makes too much money, and then more sitting around because it turned out that there was only one guy who was able to finalize deals, and he took 20 minutes per person, and there were people out of us. What's up with that?
We've may have made an error in putting it only in her name, rather than trying to put one of us on the title as well, because then when she goes away in the summer and needs to garage it at our house we won't own it and so it might be complicated, but maybe it's fine and she can just change her official address to our house when she leaves. We actually tried this trick when we gave her the Prius, with one of us on the title, and there was a flaw where they reregistered that person to vote in Cambridge, and we had to fix it, so we were trying to avoid that mishap. Maybe we could have just not checked the "reregister me to vote" box on the form, but maybe that wouldn't have worked.
Of course we don't get to drive it off the lot. She has to call the insurance agent on Tuesday and get some insurance number to the dealership, and then they have to fart around with the registry and get plates and "prep the car". What do they need to do? It looked fine. Anyway, they are saying we might get it on Thursday or Friday.
At the first dealership when we test drove cars, the salesman did not come with us, so we could have her drive even though she has an expired license, how could they stop me from switching drivers? But at the second dealership, they came with us, so I had to do all the driving. It drove extremely similarly to one of the other ones.
We had looked at: Kia Niro, Hyundai Kona, Hyundai Ionic (the first model, not the latest ones), and a Chevy Bolt. The listed Bolt had been sold, so we didn't get to test drive it, but we'd driven friends' Bolts, and the people who had bought it were picking it up, and so I got to walk over there and engage them in conversation and get a "my wingspan" measurement of the back storage area with the seats down, to compare it with the Kona, which had looked smaller, but that's because the Bolt is narrower and taller and so the perspective is different.
We ended up with the Ionic. Why? Because it was cheapest. I don't know why it was cheaper. Maybe because this model isn't made anymore. But it has the high trim level so we get adaptive cruise, which I am going to appreciate when we have the car for a few months in the summer while she is off circusing. It also seems to have enough space in the back for her bicycle, and likely, I'm going to find out if it has enough space in the back for my bicycle (which is larger) on Thursday when I pick it up!
Of course she has no time ever to do anything. Including, it turns out, renew her drivers license. Hopefully the new car can be registered in her name despite the expired drivers license, and she promises to just renew it online, rather than getting a new photo, which is what she had hoped to do, which is why she put it off.
We thought we were going to try to go buy a car on Wednesday afternoon, but it turned out she had like one hour of free time instead of the entire afternoon, and it wasn't a good day for me work wise, so we put it off until today. She had to rearrange some of the things she wanted to do, but she and I got to the car dealership right after they opened, and I had a clipboard with the used cars we were interested in all printed out and that makes the car dealers less pushy. I did have a conversation in which he said "what's the most important thing to you in a car" and I said "I want to look at these cars on my clipboard I don't want to have you match me with my dream car" and that was the end of that, and he went and got some of the cars that were on my clipboard. Unfortunately, some of the cars were at the dealership across the street (owned by the same company, so he didn't mind that we wanted to go over there, and this whole business where they don't negotiate anymore is actually really convenient, you just say I want this car and you write a check). So we had to trek across the street after we looked at the cars at the first place.
The place across the street was much busier, and so we had to wait for a salesperson, I guess because it was more than an hour later and not as close to opening time. But we looked at a car and we bought it. Sadly, the actual buying of it took two hours. There was a lot of sitting around while he xeroxed drivers licenses and more sitting around while he figured out if we were eligible for the various incentives (it's an electric car, surprise), which we were if Jocelyn was the owner rather than somebody like me who makes too much money, and then more sitting around because it turned out that there was only one guy who was able to finalize deals, and he took 20 minutes per person, and there were people out of us. What's up with that?
We've may have made an error in putting it only in her name, rather than trying to put one of us on the title as well, because then when she goes away in the summer and needs to garage it at our house we won't own it and so it might be complicated, but maybe it's fine and she can just change her official address to our house when she leaves. We actually tried this trick when we gave her the Prius, with one of us on the title, and there was a flaw where they reregistered that person to vote in Cambridge, and we had to fix it, so we were trying to avoid that mishap. Maybe we could have just not checked the "reregister me to vote" box on the form, but maybe that wouldn't have worked.
Of course we don't get to drive it off the lot. She has to call the insurance agent on Tuesday and get some insurance number to the dealership, and then they have to fart around with the registry and get plates and "prep the car". What do they need to do? It looked fine. Anyway, they are saying we might get it on Thursday or Friday.
At the first dealership when we test drove cars, the salesman did not come with us, so we could have her drive even though she has an expired license, how could they stop me from switching drivers? But at the second dealership, they came with us, so I had to do all the driving. It drove extremely similarly to one of the other ones.
We had looked at: Kia Niro, Hyundai Kona, Hyundai Ionic (the first model, not the latest ones), and a Chevy Bolt. The listed Bolt had been sold, so we didn't get to test drive it, but we'd driven friends' Bolts, and the people who had bought it were picking it up, and so I got to walk over there and engage them in conversation and get a "my wingspan" measurement of the back storage area with the seats down, to compare it with the Kona, which had looked smaller, but that's because the Bolt is narrower and taller and so the perspective is different.
We ended up with the Ionic. Why? Because it was cheapest. I don't know why it was cheaper. Maybe because this model isn't made anymore. But it has the high trim level so we get adaptive cruise, which I am going to appreciate when we have the car for a few months in the summer while she is off circusing. It also seems to have enough space in the back for her bicycle, and likely, I'm going to find out if it has enough space in the back for my bicycle (which is larger) on Thursday when I pick it up!
