Its like I'm on the Price is Right...

Yes, I am now the proud owner of a new-to-me car!


http://picasaweb.google.com/fomu65/2006HondaCivicHybrid#

last tuesday, during all the heavy rain, my camry’s windshield sprung a leak and i still had standing water in my passenger side floorboards a day later. that, added to the fact i needed new tires and the car had a major oil leak, meant i would be chasing bad money with good if i had repaired it. at 243k miles, it was time to be put out to pasture.

the stats: 2006 honda civic hybrid. 60k miles. i picked it up for only 2/3 of the current going price for a similarly equipped car. here’s where it gets interesting.

the owner’s wife drove it from louisville to midway 4 days a week. she’s an environmental lawyer. they’re in their late 50s. she got an avalon hybrid recently and didn’t need the civic. it has been garage kept. when i pulled up to look at it, the guy had to take a car cover off it. it had been very recently waxed. the interior was perfect and the engine looked like it came off the showroom. zero dirt anywhere on this car.

now, why was it relatively cheap? it had been wrecked prior to the dude purchasing it, but he had a quarter panel and the rear passenger door replaced. i couldn’t even tell it had been repaired, much less repaired 4 years ago. whoever did the body work did an amazing job.

i didn’t have to haggle; i gave him asking price. he didn’t want to haggle and with that kind of a deal, i wasn’t about to pass it up.

now here’s the funny part… i saw the ad online last night about 9:30pm but realized it was way too late to call. i intended to call him at 9am this morning, but my boss called me at 8:45 and wanted me to give a demo to some vendors. finally called him at 10am and he couldn’t meet till 4pm. i left work at 4:30pm, calling him as i drove toward where he told me he lived (didn’t get an address, was supposed to get it when i called, but he gave me a neighborhood, so i knew kind of where to go). he didn’t call me back for an hour so i sat in a park waiting. by this point i was seriously nervous the car was gone and he wasn’t calling me back.

finally he calls. i drive ½ a mile to his house and get out to see him pulling the car cover off and realizing how gorgeous this car is. we test drive it and i look it over. he finally tells me that he’s been trying to sell it all week, but it was raining so much that he didn’t want to get it out of the garage to let people drive it because he’d just have to wash it again. he had 8 other people that had called before me, wanting to come look at the car this weekend, but because i got there with a checkbook first, the car was mine.

gets crazier… he and his wife are leaving the country for 3 weeks on tuesday, so it is either close the deal now or wait till january. yep, we’re closing on monday. i can’t wait to take it home!!!!