CarSearch™: Climax

This story seems to have taken a turn for the boring (like so many of them do...). I started this little mini-series because I thought it would take a while to make this happen, but it looks like I've found a vehicle that I'm pretty happy with already. I went over to a small dealer in Avon a couple times and looked at a regular Escape that was priced on the low end of my range. It was a little beat up (seats were real bad), as I expected, but the outside looked really nice. I decided I didn't really like that, so I looked around a little more on the Internet and got interested in the Hybrid Escapes. People who have them seemed to be pretty happy with them, and I was finding some that were reasonably priced, considering you get about 30mpg, rather than 17mpg. So I decided my range could be a little bit higher if I considered the car payment part of my lower gas usage.

I talked to the Avon dealer and told them I was leaning toward the Hybrid, so I wasn't interested in the regular one they had anymore. They ended up calling back about 5 minutes later and told me their other lot in Terre Haute had one, and they would have it delivered to Avon in a couple days so I could check it out. I was a little skeptical, but I went and test drove it, and it was really nice. I liked the color, and I got them to come down on the price a little bit. So this car is on the higher end of where I wanted to go, but it's also a year newer and seems like it will last quite a while. So I guess there aren't going to be any insights or 'war stories' from this search. But it's not over yet. We'll see what Monday brings...

CarSearch™: On Car Salesmen

Car salesmen are an interesting bunch. On one hand, pretty much everyone has the same opinion of them: a greedy, lying bastard out to take every penny they can from you, even if it means you can't afford to buy groceries or you might have to make room for a bed in what he just sold you. But on the other hand, the system lives on. The proof is in the pudding. Even if everyone in America hates used car salesmen, a heck of a lot of them still buy their cars from them. So, can you really blame them for acting the way they do?

By my recent estimates, approximately 54.2% of the Internet is advice from people on how to deal with used car salesmen, ranging from '10 Tips For Dealing With Car Salesmen to Make Sure You Don’t Get Hosed' (Everybody likes short and sweet and no one wants to get hosed.) to 'What Everyone Should Know About Dealing with Car Salesmen' (Hmmm, maybe I need to know more than 10 things...) to a 'Dealing With Car Salesmen' forum (Wait... these are real people. Real people I can trust.) to 'Confessions of a Former Car Salesman' and 'Confessions of a Car Salesman' (Clearly these two men have had a change of heart. Now that I'm armed with this, these salesmen better watch out!) and finally 'The Car Dealership's BIGGEST Secret -- Revealed!' (It's like the National Enquirer of car shopping!). After arming myself with this huge chunk of Internet wisdom, I'm ready to take on a world full of car salesmen.

Stay tuned for the next installment to see how well I use my newly discovered powers.

CarSearch™: Introduction

Remember that old show StarSearch that was hosted by Ed McMahon and lots of people age 6 to 60 went head to head against each other to gain the coveted four stars and the chance to fight another day? Well, I'm ripping off their title and pretty much none of their content in my quest to find a new vehicle. So this is going to be a quick warm-up post to make sure everyone is in the same ballpark.

Right now, I drive a 1992 Saturn SC, which you can sorta see on the right in a photo proving I was the first person to arrive for tailgating at the 2002 Ball State football game against Indiana State. So obviously, I've had the car since college. I believe my dad paid $3000 for it, and I've been driving it for six years. It has survived a lot, but it's starting to get worn out. The exhaust rattles a little, and there are a lot of minor things that I just don't care to fix.

So, I have embarked upon a search for a new-ish small-ish SUV. Right now I'm leaning toward a Ford Escape (which you can also see at the right, in a much better -- and much more manly -- photo) or a Chevy Equinox somewhere around the year 2004 or 2005. Hopefully that's enough to get you caught up. The posts will continue throughout the process.