Y'all have been awesome. I realized last night that I'm probably (ok, definitely) just overthinking this whole thing. I look at something, let's say an Accord V6 from the early 2000's, and start to worry about transmission issues. Or car at the top of my price range, wondering if I'll have the money set aside do fix anything that crops up. Or something I'm not familiar with, I'll spend 3 hours trying to research problems. It seems like everything I look at, I try to talk myself out of it or convince myself why it's not one to look at.
Plus, I had SWMBO (since she'll drive it more than me) search through the websites to get an idea of what she's thinking. Her idea of a next car and mine are waaay off. She leans towards more feature laden cars with sunroofs, leather, dual zone A/C, etc. While I kinda get her thoughts, because the truck is bear bones basic with a vinyl floor, stiff manual windows, interior and exterior beat to heck, etc, the idea of buying something with a zillion things to break or go bad makes me nervous. I also know that in her mind, the truck is an '02 with under 150k miles, so anything older or with more miles will have even more problems than the truck. Probably not, because the truck led a hard life before we got it, but, again, I can totally understand.
FWIW, I pinged someone about a car today and can hopefully look at it tomorrow. In this market, I'm sure it'll sell before then, but we'll see.
-Rob
rob_lewis said:
.... I realized last night that I'm probably (ok, definitely) just overthinking this whole thing. I look at something, let's say an Accord V6 from the early 2000's, and start to worry about transmission issues. Or car at the top of my price range, wondering if I'll have the money set aside do fix anything that crops up. Or something I'm not familiar with, I'll spend 3 hours trying to research problems. It seems like everything I look at, I try to talk myself out of it or convince myself why it's not one to look at. ...
I've not contributed to this thread previously, as I'm no help, but Rob, this is me to a T. I go through an endless loop of discounting every option due to "x". Which is why I'm still driving my snotty Mazda 3 which I bought in a rush 3 / 4 years ago..... You're not alone!
I start with a "What size Hyundai/Kia do I want". Once I know that, I move forward. Does it need to be compact and get great fuel economy? I look for an accent/Rio. Do I need it to be a medium distance car (4-800 miles on a trp) and get decent economy? I look for a Forte/Elantra. Am I looking to be comfy and get decent economy and not really concerned about sporty/playfulness? I look for a Sonata/Optima. Do I just want a psuedo luxo-barge with couch seating and screw the fuel economy? I look for an Azera/Cadenza. If I want RWD and turbos/V8 it is a genesis/Stinger.
After that the wife smacks my pee pee and tells me "we aren't buying any more damn cars so stop looking." So i do it on my phone at work so she won't see it.
paul_s0 said:...Which is why I'm still driving my snotty Mazda 3 which I bought in a rush 3 / 4 years ago..... You're not alone!
It doesn't help that when I fired up the old Silverado this morning, there was a wicked clatter and the oil pressure was at like 4. Shut it off, counted to ten (so I didn't scream) and tried again. Fired up, no clatter and 40 psi; ran fine for the morning errands. I've got a new pump and oil pan gasket on the workbench ready to go in, but really need a second car before I tear into it. Nothing ever seems to go easy on the truck but Murphy's law states that if I don't have a backup, then entire crankshaft will fall out when I remove the pan BUT if I have a backup car, it'll go smoothly and will take longer to put the truck on jackstands than it does to replace the pump. So, the pressure to get something soon went up a bit. I was hoping I had the truck sorted enough to give me some time. Wife has plans running around with a friend on Sunday, so if nothing pans out Friday or Saturday, I may risk it and swap the pump on Sunday.
Which means I'll throw the research and all the searching out the window and buy the first thing that doesn't suck. 
-Rob
paul_s0 said:
rob_lewis said:
.... I realized last night that I'm probably (ok, definitely) just overthinking this whole thing. I look at something, let's say an Accord V6 from the early 2000's, and start to worry about transmission issues. Or car at the top of my price range, wondering if I'll have the money set aside do fix anything that crops up. Or something I'm not familiar with, I'll spend 3 hours trying to research problems. It seems like everything I look at, I try to talk myself out of it or convince myself why it's not one to look at. ...
I've not contributed to this thread previously, as I'm no help, but Rob, this is me to a T. I go through an endless loop of discounting every option due to "x". Which is why I'm still driving my snotty Mazda 3 which I bought in a rush 3 / 4 years ago..... You're not alone!
If I walk into Ace needing a head lamp and they have just one model I'll be back out with it in 3 minutes and never think of it again. If I go on Amazon I may have one in 3 hours, maybe not.
That is a benefit to the situation slefain described with having a deal fall into my lap: "yes/no" I can do, "which one" apparently overloads me
pointofdeparture said:
Unless it's REALLY special, if ANYTHING seems sketchy or like it will be a pain in the ass, I scratch it off the list and move on. My time is too valuable to play games these days.
This, for sure. "title is in my friend's name, it's at my cousin's neighbor's dads house.....,"etc.
is there anyway to buy the trade-ins at the local dealer that are too old / ugly to put out on their own used cars lot ?
trying to get them before they go to the dealer auction !
Well, after a couple of weeks of searching/researching before I had the cash in hand, ended up tossing it all out the window and bought the first one we looked at. 1997 CRV, 117k original miles. Bought it up the street at a tiny dealer that's been around for 35 years. Other then the fluids and general cleanup, the only thing that needs to be fixed is the driver's door harness. The power window and locks don't work. Apparently, it's very common on those year Honda's. Wife is happy with it. We were both concerned about the age, but with that few miles, we figured it was a good choice. Plus, wife was looking through the manual last night and found out it had a 100k extended warranty from Honda. So, there's a good chance the maintenance was kept up on the first 100k miles.
Glad we bought it last night. She was going to take the truck this morning to run some errands while I worked on the door, but near as I can tell, the oil pump's finally given up. So, I've started tearing that apart today. Already have a new pump and gasket on the bench.
-Rob
CRVs and Rav4s are the easiest cars to recommend to any shopper. No one has every really disliked them.
You did well.
In reply to John Welsh :
Not true. I absolutely loathed the wife's firs gen Rav. LOATHED.
