THIS PIECE IS IN PROGRESS... I AM CONFUSED ABOUT WHICH EVENTS HAPPENED WHEN, SO THIS IS PROBABLY OUT OF ORDER
My First Honda
I already knew, when I decided to ditch the Jeep and get a "new" car, that I'd get a Honda (see The Jeep Saga - Part II).
I'd had a Honda before - a gold 1990 Civic hatch back, which I'd named "Sherman". I'd acquired Shermie in 1991 at a wholesale price. A man who usually sold cars to dealerships had posted this car in the paper. When I bought Shermie, she had 40,000 miles on her, and had been in an accident. It's a good thing I'd been able to find a Civic at such a good price - they were typically marked way up at dealerships, and I didn't have much money. I'd had to get a bank loan of $5,700.
Shermie had served me quite well. I'd driven her all over town and back and forth to Pittsburgh numerous times. Her death knell came in the form of underbody rust. She also developed an annoying problem whereby the beeping noise, which usually only sounds when one is getting into or out of the car, sounded almost constantly.
I gave Shermie away to a young man named Erik, whom I'd met at Eastern Accents. He'd worked behind the counter, and I'd gotten to know him pretty well. I'd even coaxed him away from Eastern Accents with a job where I work (much to the dismay of Ben, one of the cafe owners). Erik liked to work on cars, so I figured that the little Honda would be in good hands.
Later, I'd see Shermie around town from time to time. After Erik had owned Shermie for awhile, I asked him how Shermie was working out, and he said he'd actually passed her on to a friend. My little car was easily recognizable because of a missing cosmetic plastic strip and its particular pattern of rust.
Beginning my search for a Honda Civic hatch back
When I began my search for a new car, now in 2004, I thought I'd want to get another Civic hatch back so that I could continue hauling stuff when I needed to. I also was sure that I wanted a car with standard transmission. When I'd had to switch from standard to automatic, I'd been very disappointed, and had always thought I'd return to standard transmission.
I began my search feeling kind of intimidated. It seemed like an enormous task. Based on the advice of the mechanic who'd tolled the death knell for the Jeep, I began my search on the internet. I started with the website he'd recommended, and quickly discovered that there were many on-line automotive classified sites.
I spent most of an evening perusing these sites. It was not looking good. I was not seeing manual transmission Honda Civic hatch backs in my price range. In fact, I was seeing very few hatch backs, period. I saw plenty of Civic four-doors, however, There were also plenty of Accords.
Based on the model years of cars in my price range, I began to do some research on what people were saying about these cars. People had very good things to say about the Civic four-door model. However, a lot of people repeated the same complaint - that the seats were not very comfortable. This did not bode well for long trips.
Then I saw a comment which put things in perspective - the Civic owner said something like - "This is a great little first car." Well, this was going to be my third car. I make a lot of money. What the hell was I doing buying a "first car" with that kind of income, and at this age (almost 40)?
Trying the Newspaper Classifieds
Somehow, I managed to miss the opportunity to begin my search on a Sunday, when the paper would be chock full of ads. I took a look at the paper on Monday and saw that there were plenty of Hondas for sale. But there were not very many hatch backs, and even fewer I could afford.
But I did find an ad for a Civic four-door that seemed to meet my needs, and it only cost around $1600. I didn't feel like I could spend much on a car. I'd been socked with a ton of expenses this year. The Jeep had cost me over $3,000, and bridges on both sides of my mouth had cost another few thousand.
I also found an ad for new-ish a Toyota Corolla in my price range.I called the sellers of both cars and made arrangements to test-drive the cars. The guy selling the Toyota seemed strange. At first he wanted to meet in the parking lot of a grocery store. Then he agreed to come to my house. Then he was late and I had to call him to see whether he was still coming.
When driving the Toyota I could tell that it was a nice car and would meet my needs. However, it had automatic transmission, so I wasn't ready to jump on it. I still wanted to drive the Civic. I was still very new to car shopping, so I actually told the guy that I was interested and asked him to call me if he found another buyer so I could decide whether to beat the asking price. I didn't yet realize that it was well worth taking the time to look for the car I really wanted.
The seller of the Honda Civic was located nearby - at his mom's house, which was in a really expensive area. I'd actually seen the house from a trail in Bird Hills numerous times. The seller was a very friendly young man - he wore tweed (?) pants - he seemed like a combination of hippie and academic.
I was pretty excited to drive the car. Unfortunately, it was dark during the test drive, but it didn't turn out to be a big problem. Early in the test drive, I became concerned about the shifter. It seemed very loose, and didn't feel right in other ways either. It also seemed like the car's brakes weren't as responsive as they should be.
But it had also been a long time since I'd driven a manual transmission, so I wasn't sure how it was supposed to feel. I was also very eager to buy this car, since it seemed to meet my needs, and I didn't want to spend a lot of time looking for a car. I arranged with the seller to have the car inspected at his garage.
Pre-Purchase Inspection
The seller's garage was Main Street Motors, which has an extremely good reputation - it had won a best-of award recently. I dropped the car off in the morning, explaining some of my concerns to the mechanic.
That afternoon when I picked up the car, I got some bad news. The car had countless problems! It would have cost more to fix the car than the purchase price. The mechanic strongly advised me not to buy the car. I was very disappointed, but was glad I'd had it tested. I was out $100, but also had avoided saddling myself with another lemon.
So I was back at square one.
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