Vehicle shopping is process that’s difficult to like or not like

I still can’t decide if I like shopping for a new vehicle, and I don’t know if I ever will.


In my lifetime, I’ve purchased eight vehicles, starting with a 1979 Pontiac Sunbird I purchased as my first car 20 years ago, through the 2008 Ford Escape I purchased last week.

The Sunbird was a clunker. I bought it from my boss who somehow convinced me it would be the perfect starter vehicle. Maybe it could have been, if it had actually started on most of the days I owned it. It sat in our driveway an entire winter, unable to start.

When it finally did start in the spring, my dad told me to take it to the gas station and put some new gas in it. That was almost its final voyage, as a drunk driver coming into the city of Berlin at speeds nearing 100 miles an hour somehow weaved around my 25 m.p.h. moving turtle right into the rear end of a vehicle ahead of me. Fortunately, none of the people in either vehicle were seriously injured, although I was on the witness list for possible litigation but was never called to testify.

I retired the Sunbird a few months later, purchasing a Chevrolet Z24 right before going off to college. That sports vehicle was a mistake, as the insurance cost more than my car payments. I sold it a year later and got a much more practical four-door Chevrolet car. It was so boring I can’t remember its year or model, but it was reliable enough that it got me through my remaining years of college.

I traded it in for a 1994 Mercury Sable in 1997. I’m not sure what possessed me to purchase it, because I never really liked it. It was what my friends called an “old person’s car.” It was a bigger vehicle more suited for a family of four than a bachelor with a limited gas budget, even at a time when gas was inexpensive.

During this time, I met my future wife, Jennifer, who was driving a beater she had gotten years ago from her grandparents. I’m pretty sure neither of us was attracted to the other for our vehicles.

Shortly before we got married, she traded in her beater for a 2000 Plymouth Neon. We traded in the Mercury for a 2003 Buick Rendezvous a few years later, and apparently just in time, too. When we returned from the dealer after bringing in the Mercury, we noticed a big chunk of the car in our driveway. I’m not even sure what the part was, but I’m happy it wasn’t needed to make the journey to the dealership.

The Rendezvous was a good vehicle, but it died of the fate that should have happened to the Sunbird: a drunk driver rear-ended it when Jennifer was attempting to pick me up from work. Fortunately the drunk driver wasn’t speeding, but the damage was enough to total the car.

Losing the Rendezvous meant we had to replace it. We bought an older vehicle, a 1999 Honda CRV, but it only had 60,000 miles on it and it was like new.

For the last four years we’ve been racking up miles on the Neon and Honda. The Neon was up to 194,000 miles and the Honda has 174,000 miles. Knowing it’s not wise to have two 200,000-mile vehicles, we started shopping for a new vehicle about a month ago.

For the first time ever, we went to multiple dealers. In the past, we usually bought the first vehicle we liked in our price range at the first dealer we stopped at. This strategy has usually worked out, but there have been times we’ve questioned if we could have gotten a better vehicle.

We may have gone to more dealers this time because of something new we’ve noticed at some of the dealers: the car salesman gets in the car with you for a test drive, after you fill out a mini-application to go on a test drive. I understand why they do it – I wouldn’t want anybody running off with a vehicle either – but it intrudes on some of the time couples spend talking with each other about the vehicle, time often used to decide “yes” on buying it. Without that time in some cases, we left the dealership undecided, realizing shortly later we should just look at some more vehicles.

We’re happy with the Ford Escape, so right now I’d say I like car shopping. But if I have to do this again any time soon, my opinion might change.
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Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Oct. 7, 2011.