Do you remember in April when we rented a Chevy Malibu for a day and I decided I didn’t want to buy one? I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what the problem was but I both liked and didn’t like the car. In the end I just kind of shrugged and said, “nah,” and Hubby and I decided to drive Nadia (the 2002 silver Chevy Cavalier) into the ground. So, we put on new tires. It hurt, but we were throwing the dice and you’ve got to pay to play, right?. We were going to slide right under fate and get another year out of the car. I mentally watched the bank account that housed my “car down payment” money rising over the next year.
Then, one of Hubby’s friends from his teenage years died. This friend lived 5 1/5 hours northwest of Milwaukee (i.e. B.F.E. – If you have to ask what that means just make the mental translation “middle of nowhere”). We had to make a fast decision about how to get to the funeral. Nadia was getting less and less comfortable. The driver’s seat had broken and I was leaned considerably far back with my arms practically locked to reach the steering wheel. It was great exercise for my stomach muscles to hold myself up. We decided to rent a car for three days to get there and back. We get to Hertz, the same place we’d rented the Malibu from, and they had another mid-grade car available. I said fine. Hubby said, “What else could you do for us?” The attendant flashed a set of keys, “I have an Impala with heated seats” he said knowingly. Hubby would have nothing else. We did 17 1/2 hours in three days and it was very comfortable. And it only cost half a car payment!
Then, vacation comes. This is why were considering buying the Malibu in the first place. By this point the seat was really bothering me. I had begun to actively dislike driving it. But! We were in “driving it into the ground mode.” I had that smug, self-satisfied, I-save-my-money attitude to fall back on. I do not treat myself. I wring every bit of usefulness out of my cars. I am thrifty. I do not have car ego to hold me back and separate me from my money. The dent in the door and the missing hubcap do not bother me. And that would have been fine except for the sound Hubby was hearing coming from the wheels.
At first he thought it was the wear indicators on the tires so we bought new brakes which he planned to install. Parts are expensive, too! He got the wheels off and found that the brakes were fine. We realized we didn’t have the receipt for the brake parts. We still haven’t solved that one. But the sound continued and he changed his mind about the cause. He was concerned it was a wheel bearing and we didn’t want to take a driving vacation with a potentially serious problem looming so in Nadia goes to our mechanic. More than half a car payment later we have a replaced wheel bearing. We asked them to look at the seat but they discouraged it saying it wouldn’t be worth our money to try to fix it, it needed to be replaced. Did we want to do that? Yes, we did, but we decided to do it ourselves.
So the week before vacation we drive an hour one-way out to the only boneyard that was both a. open on a Saturday morning and b. reported they had Chevy Cavaliers on deck. I don’t know what I was expecting, I’d been to a boneyard before, but this place removed the doors and tires of their cars before they put them on the lot. Meaning, the weather and the bugs had free reign with the upholstery. We found nothing and I was not inclined to keep looking. We left for vacation with a sheet stuffed into the small of my back to hold me up straighter.
So! Vacation! I’d been planning since last year to take a day trip up into Sault Ste. Marie Canada this year. Hubby and I both got full passports which we plan to use again in a few years for a trip to France to visit friends. Passports are not cheap. Throw in the photos and you’re talking more than half a car payment. As we’re leaving a lovely hike at Tacquenamon Falls and heading toward Ontario the car starts missing at highway speeds. We’re again in the middle of nowhere, Upper Peninsula, Michigan and headed toward a foreign country. We decide not to risk breaking down in Canada and turn the car back around and return to the cabin and another mechanic.
Hubby and the mechanic do shop talk and in the end we walk away with a $10 bottle of engine cleaner. We continue on with the vacation with occasional misses but no decrease in speed and no real trouble. Sitting on the beach behind the cabin we decide that we’ll get a new car in two months.
But by this point Nadia is really aggravating to drive, she’s scary, and I start pushing when we return to Lansing. Let’s shop for a new car. Let’s buy a Malibu after all. We do considerable online shopping and finally locate a low-mileage, late-model Malibu LT2 at Sundance Chevrolet. We head out there. The car salesman is Ed Fernandez. He’s a great guy. It’s a great car. Sporty. Heated seats. Wood in the dash. Power driver seats. Running stripes. We buy it after a 15 minute test drive. After all, we’d already rented one, right? I’d driven it for a day.
After we buy the car we drive it around for an hour and head home. I’m lukewarm. It’s not comfortable. My back hurts. I’m not going to want to go on any trips in this car and we road trip A LOT. I’m remembering more clearly that I didn’t like the Malibu when I’d rented it and that’s why we didn’t buy it. I break and tell Hubby I don’t like the car. He accuses me of wanting to talk about “feelings” but being a lousy communicator about other things. My response was a double rum and coke and some Tylenol.
I have a trip to Saginaw for work planned. I decide to take the new car and make a final decision about whether to keep the car. In the meantime Hubby calls Ed and tells him we love the car. Why do men do these things? Well, HUBBY loved the car.
I pick up my colleague K for the trip to Saginaw. She admires the car. When I told her we’d bought a new one she said her car was in the shop yet again. “You spent more money than I did!” she bounced back. Yup, I thought, and you haven’t heard the half of it.
We drive to Saginaw and I’m still lukewarm about the car. On the drive back I make the final decision that I don’t want the thing at all. I call Hubby at work and he heaves a big sigh. We agree to go to the car dealership when I get back to town. K assures me this happens all the time.
Ed is surprised. He says he’s never had anyone find the cockpit seats of a Malibu uncomfortable but genially agrees that if a car isn’t comfortable it just isn’t. Hubby tries to explain his, “We love the Malibu” statement.
The paperwork hadn’t been processed by the state yet so they were able to pull the sale back. We tell him we want to try an Impala. We’d rented one of those also and I knew it was comfortable. He searches his computer. He has a 2010 Impala LTZ with 6,000 miles on it. Black. Black on black. With tinted windows. The air conditioner was broken as was the fan (when you turned the car off the fan kept blowing and blowing and blowing, like, it didn’t stop). We drove it for a day. We took a stab at naming the vehicle. I always said I would not allow color to be a deciding factor for me in a used car. And the year and mileage were right. We were settling between Black Betty or Black Mariah. I wasn’t happy with the car and it’s going to cost quite a bit more than the Malibu but I’m trying to be pragmatic and not picky. It’s still under warranty as far as the air and blower were concerned. It didn’t hurt my back and H.E. Double Toothpicks, it’s a luxury car. Naming the car was my attempt to get friendly with the behemoth. Did I mention it feels HUGE when compared to the Cavalier?
We get back to the dealership and Ed says:
“I think I have your car. I know you weren’t crazy about the black.”
It’s a white 2011 Impala LT with a tan interior. 17,000 miles. I immediately feel less intimidated. And the air works. Everything works. Huge plus. We take it out for a good 45 minutes. Pull over. Try everything. Examine the car from stem to stern. When we get back he asks if we want to take it home for the weekend and think about it. We say no, we’ll take it. Her name came easily: Annie! A nice unimposing name for a nice, easy-to-like car.
The license plate numbers are our wedding date. We were married on the campus of Michigan State University. The vanity plate holder was a graduation gift from my mom.
It still feels like the seat is a little funny. Maybe it’s a GM thing. But it doesn’t hurt and that’s what matters. I like the color and I find that matters, too. It has a moon roof which is terrific fun and I can plug my iPhone in bounce around to all my music. God bless iPhones. So, we have car payments again. But we have a great car that is no longer an embarrassment. And many thanks to Ed at Sundance for accommodating me.
I asked Hubby if he was going to call Stud Boy and complain about what a flake I was over the car. Of course, he said, what do you think?
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