Good New on the Auto Front

Shrike's car had a tire with a not-so-slow leak, and needed to be inspected; my car had an even less slow oil leak and really needed to be inspected.

(Mine was due in October. I readily admit that I have no excuse for not having done it sometime in the first twenty-six days of the month, but since then, I've been rather busy.)

We dropped her car off on Tuesday, and the mechanic called yesterday to say that the tire had been repaired (or replaced?) and that it had passed inspection with no problems.

Yay!

Today, she switch cars out her car for mine, and he called back this afternoon to say that it's all ready to go, and that the oil was leaking because the filter was really loose.

Yay again.

Also WHEW!

Oh! I Almost Forgot!

Our $8000 refund check from the fertility clinic arrived in the mail yesterday!

As it turns out, Shrike actually did not have insurance coverage for her testing, so we ended up having to pay about $3500 for it (!) but that still leaves us a net refund of $4500. 

Of course, the whole point of paying the $8000 was to cover testing that wasn't covered by insurance, so they didn't have to give us back anything at all. 

Originally, I thought we'd use the refund to pay off the home equity loan, but after having to pay for all that testing, plus some other stuff, plus additional upcoming Peeper-related expenses we now owe more than that on it Of course, we could pay it down alot, but would still owe for quite a while, and would still have the $100/month payment. 

However, we only owe owed about $7300 on my car, and we're we were paying $170/month on it. 

So, we paid off the car today!!!

We debated about which way to go with it, but decided that was the best choice, overall. 

At the moment, the interest rates on the two loans are the same (5%) although the home equity is likely to go up at some point. 

(It's prime - 1, with a floor of 5% and prime is at, I think, 5.25 now, so it won't change til prime goes up an entire percentage point, which doesn't look to be happening real soon.)

So, in the long run, it will probably cost us a bit more than if we'd put all $8000 on the home equity, but given that I won't be working full time after Peeper is born, getting rid of that $170/month payment seemed like the way to go.

So, the bank may still own our kid, but the car is now ours!

A Pointless Morning

We had big plans for this morning - we were supposed to start by dropping my car off at the tire place (oops, did I not mention the blow-out I had on the interstate Wednesday morning?), then pop over to the Farmer's Market for some veggies, drop by the Mental Health Center (no, not for our craziness) to place an Angel Food order, then head out to the "HUGE Kid's Consignment Sale!!!" that's happening this weekend.

About half of that actually ended up happening.

First, the tire guy said that they neither sell nor warranty the kind of tires that are on my car, so if I want it replaced under warranty (which it's supposed to be), I'll have to take it to the dealership. Strike one.

We did okay, I suppose, at the Farmer's Market. I got some potatoes, and onion and a cucumber, but the little old lady with the yummy sweet pepper relish didn't seem to be there, so I wasn't able to pick up any of that. Foul ball.

We did place our Angel Food order without incident. (Visit their website to learn more about that.) This is our first time, so we felt a little weird, but it was fine. And we found out that, in the future, we can just order for the next month when we do our pickup, so we'll only have to go over there once a month.

Then, we dropped Shrike's car at home (we've been in two cars all this time, because I wasn't able to leave mine with the tire guy) and headed over to the consignment sale.

We weren't looking for anything in particular (thanks to the bonanza of baby stuff that we received on Thursday), and we agreed to not go crazy with the tiny, pink clothes (she already has tons!) but figured we'd see lots of other stuff that we need, but didn't really have on a list.

Eh, not so much.

We did look at clothes a bit, and I almost bought a really pretty forest green and gold velvety (very Christmasy) dress in a 24 months size, but decided against it. There were some other really cute Christmas and winter things in 18 months - likely to be exactly the wrong size/season for her.

Other than that, we really didn't see anything we were interested in.

There were several tables of vendors selling things that I guess Mommies are supposed to like - like jewelry and candles and smelly things and look-purties, but that didn't interest us too much.

There were two or three long tables with toys, and an other small area with floor toys (kitchens and tool benches and easels and the like) but none of those really struck our fancy, either.

There was one small row of gear, but it was all things we have - a crib, some pack and plays, swings, etc.

We ended up buying a CD (Dance and Sing, 20 hand-clapping, toe-tapping songs!) for $1.50, and calling it a day.

And, we're out!

Then we came home, shared a peanut butter brownie from the Farmer's Market (with no-sugar-added ice cream, of course) and took a nap.

Home run!

Black Friday

Although we typically try to avoid shopping on "Black Friday," I actually did quite a bit today.

For starters, we finally bought my car - starting at the bank to close on the loan, then over to the dealership to sign the purchase papers.

Once everything was done, and I had the keys, I did tell the salesman and the sales manager how unhappy I was with how things were handled on Saturday.

The salesman was nice about it, and very apologetic. The sales manager was not.

He still tried to blamed things on the bank, and actually said, when I told him that I came "this close" to backing out of the deal, "Well, I would have sold it to someone else for more."

Wow. What a dick.

If he'd reacted like the salesman did, I would have left it at that, but now I think I am going to write a letter to the general manager.

After picking up the car, Shrike headed to work and I did some shopping.

I actually ventured to the mall for a bit, but is wasn't as awful as I had feared. I got a gift for Shrike's Grandma, whose name I drew for Secret Santa.

After a brief stop at home, I headed to Borders in ShrikeWorkTown, where I got some things for the directors' gift exchange at our next business meeting. I also got a couple of small gifts for Shrike's stocking. About $30 worth, total, all paid for with gift cards!

Then I picked up some Taco Bell and met Shrike for dinner, which is always a little "bonus" to the day.

After dinner, I hit the Dollar Tree, for pregnancy tests, and some stuff to make gifts for my teachers, to give them at our center holiday party. Nothing fancy; I'm just filling big coffee mugs with candy. I'll probably put some pretty ribbons on them or something, too.

I made one more stop on my way home, but that's a surprise for Shrike, so I can't say yet where I went.

(Are you in suspenders now, honey?)

A pretty productive day, all in all.

Holding Patterns

I had to work yesterday morning, and when I got home, we went over to the car dealership to sign the papers and pick up the car.

However, when we got there, we found out that they didn't have the paperwork together. After talking to our bank on Tuesday, I'd told the salesman to fax the purchase agreement to them, and they would fax back the loan approval.

He says that he gave the purchase agreement to their financing person, and asked her to send it, but now she's on vacation.

In the four days between then and when I was showing up to get the car, he never bothered to check on whether the paperwork was in, and acted like he didn't know what I was talking about when I said that he should have it. Then, the sales manager tried to shift he blame, and when I said, "So, what do we do now?" he replied, "Get a new bank."

That really pissed me off.

So, there's nothing to be done until Monday morning, when they can talk to the bank and get the paperwork.

That means that we will have to make another trip over there to sign the papers (or separate trips, unless we wait until Saturday) and that it will be a few more days before we can get the car.

If we even get it at all, because now I'm not sure I even want their fucking car.

When we left there, we looked at several other dealerships that we'd not hit last weekend. I basically told the sales people there that I had an offer, but the dealership pissed me off, and if they could give me a better deal, I'd take it.

I test drove a couple that were a better price - a 2001 (?) Kia Rio Cinco that would be $500 less than the Suzuki (out the door) and a 2002 (?) PT Cruiser (silver, not electric blue) for $200 less - but neither was a better deal, when you consider features, age, mileage and warranty.

I've cooled down a bit from being pissed off, but I'm still not sure what to do.

The Suzuki is a great little car, and a great deal, but I'm not sure that I'm in love with it. I realized as I was sitting at the dealership, waiting on the paperwork (which, of course, never came) that I was not nearly as giddy as I ought to be, for someone about to buy a car that nice.

Maybe it's just because I hate the idea of spending the money, or maybe that's just not the car that I really want, but even before yesterday, I was glad that we'd found a good car at a good price, but not overly excited about that car.

So, I just don't know what to do now. The salesman will be calling me back tomorrow, after he talks to the bank, and if we're not going to buy it, I really have to tell him then, because despite having it in writing that my $200 deposit is refundable if I change my mind, I really don't trust that we can stretch this out much further and still get it back.

I know the car is a great deal, but I also know that we can find something cheaper (we've seen cheaper).

Maybe we can't find something that nice for cheaper, but do we really need something that nice?
Shrike doesn't like the Rio for a variety of reasons, including that it's older, has more miles on it and less warranty, but I could have lived with the manual locks, windows and mirrors, and the fact that I could only put one CD at a time its player.

Maybe I'm not going to find anything we can afford that is so "WOW" that I just have to have it, but if I'm going to just be buying the car that's the smart choice, not the emotional choice, then maybe we should get a good deal on a more basic car and pay less.

Shit.

Help me, Interwebs! What to do?!?

In other news, we made the drive down to the RE's main office for monitoring this morning, and saw the following:

Uterine lining: 10.6 mm
Right side follicles: 17.1 mm, 12.0 mm
Left side follicles: 16.8 mm, 16.0 mm, 13.0 mm

The ones under 15 mm are probably too small to mature in time, which is fine, because I might be a little nervous about inseminating with five eggs. It does look like we ought to be able to get three, though.

The bigger ones are not quite ready yet, so instead of inseminating tomorrow and Tuesday, as I'd expected, I will do another FSH injection tonight, and go back for more monitoring on Tuesday morning. I'm assuming that we'll trigger Tuesday evening, and do the IUIs Wednesday and Thursday.

(Insert turkey baster joke here.)

I had to pay an additional $120 for the 2 vials of Bravelle (FSH) to do the extra injection, which I was none too thrilled about. I hope I can get my insurance to reimburse for half. They are not going to like it, since it didn't come from their very special pharmacy, but I will just explain that there was no choice; I found out this morning that I had to take it this evening. They couldn't have possibly gotten it to me by then.

So, we will inseminate sometime this week, but we don't know when and we might buy a car, too, but who the fuck knows.

Thursday Thirteen #37

I'm a little late getting this posted, but I did start composing it yesterday. My computer was misbehaving, so I rebooted it and went to watch a bit of tv. I fell asleep on the couch and the next thing I knew, Shrike was home from work, waking me up. So, here it is now.

Thirteen Features of My Actual New Car
Compare to last week's list, to see how we did.

1. Four Doors
2. Three rear seatbelts
3. Hatchback / wagon
4. Cruise control
5. Electric Yellow
6. Rear window defrost
7. Tilt steering wheel
8. Keyless entry
9. Pretty cool looking
10. 2004
11. Less than 21,500 miles
12. $8500, "out the door"
13. 6-disc in-dash CD changer

Not bad.

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Car Talk

I think we've decided against the Cruiser, for a variety of reasons.

Not the least of which is that I have serious doubts as to whether I'm cool enough to pull it off.

Seriously, we really like the looks of the Suzuki, and I test drove it this evening. Shrike was at work, but I didn't want to wait until Saturday (the first time we can get there together) to see it up close.

It drives pretty well and is just as nice inside as it is outside. I'm pretty sure we're going to get it, unless our research turns up something really bad about that model.

I told the salesman that it was more than we really wanted to spend, and told him that we'd really like to be "out the door" for a nice round number, almost $400 less than the price of the car - and a little more than $1000 less than the "out the door" price.

After the drive, he asked if we'd have a deal if he could get it for me at my price, and I said sure, with the caveat about the research.

After talking with his boss (yeah, I know, that's all a big game "Let's me see what I can do. Well, my boss won't go for that, but . . . .") he offered to "split the difference" between their price and mine, and offered it to me "out the door" (including tax, title, tags, fees, etc) for $500 more than the price I'd suggested, and barely $100 more than their starting sticker price.

Not too bad, considering that I didn't expect them to budge at all. Of course, now I'm thinking I should've said we wanted to be $500 lower than that!

I still want to check with our insurance company and see what it's going to do to our premiums there. I'm sure it will cost more than the Escort, and I want to include that in my calculations

I put down a $200 refundable deposit, which will hold it through the weekend.

The salesman is going to call me back tomorrow with the warranty details (with barely 21,000 miles on it, there should be a good bit of factory warranty left).

We'll talk it over a bit more and will probably give him an answer tomorrow or Wednesday, pending checking out a few little things, like the cd player/changer (6 disc, in-dash), and making sure they work or will be fixed (for the price we've been quoted).

Or, Maybe This One

We also like this 2004 Suzuki Aerio SX. It has 21,130 miles on it, and costs about $500 less than the PT Cruiser.

Taking gas mileage into account, we're looking at about $15 less per pay check (every two weeks).

Here's a comparison between the two.

What to do?

Auto Erotica

We went car shopping today and, God help me, I think I'm in love.
That's not a stock photo, it's the actual car that we're looking at - a 2003 Chrysler PT Cruiser GT Turbo, with less than 37,500 miles on it. That color is called Electric Blue.

Here are a few reviews of this model:

• Motor Trend Magazine
• PTCruizer.com
• Edmunds.com

You can see some more photos of the actual car here.

And, would you believe, it's actually in our price range!

Of all the dealerships we visited today, it was one of maybe three cars that fit our no-compromise criteria (4-door, hatchback or wagon, 5 passenger) and was also in our price range.

We would have like to have found something a bit lower in that range, but didn't really expect to.

We might still be able to, at the place where we bought our two current cars (we didn't make it there today), but none as cool as this, I'm sure, or with mileage this low.

Even $1000 - $2000 less only translates to a $10 or $20 per paycheck savings on the payment and, hell, we can piss away that much in a couple of weeks, and never even notice it.

Of course, we'd rather that my Escort had hung in there for a few more months - or years - but given that we we have to get something, I think we're leaning pretty strongly toward this one.

The dealership is closed until Monday, so we've got time to discuss it some more, but I suspect the decision has been made.

Auto Update

We're giving up on my car.

I thought we could have them put it back together with chewing gum and scotch tape and it might hold out for another month or two, but when I talked to the mechanic this morning, he said that they'd gotten the head back from the machine shop, and it's cracked all the way across.

He didn't actually refuse to put it back in, but just about.

He said that it's definitely going to leak water into the oil and blow the engine. Probably sooner rather than later.

he said that it could happen on the initial start-up, or on its first trip around the block.

His exact words were, "If you put that head back on, it's got a death sentence."

(I'm wondering if this was the same guy who thought he's heard a "death whirl" coming from it a few months ago.)

I also found out that they've already done about $180 worth of work on it, just to diagnose the program that we're not fixing.

So, now our decision is whether to pay them that and another $35 to tow it to our house, so we can try to get something for it on a trade-in, or whether to just go get all my stuff out of it, and let them sell it to the salvage guy for us.

He said that it will probably only bring about $75 for salvage, and none of the three dealerships that I called were willing to give us any more than that.

One is double-checking with his boss, and will get back to me, but he's pretty sure about it.

So, unless he calls back and offers us significantly more, I guess we'll go the salvage route, and try to recoup at least a bit of what we're having to pay them for telling us all this.

So, now I guess we have to buy a car.

I think I'd like to try to hang in there with the truck for a few weeks, and wait til closer to Christmas, when the deals are better.

Hopefully, by then, we'll be pregnant and won't have that unknown amount of baby-making bills looming ahead of us. (Just that slightly-less-unknown amount of baby-raising bills.)

In the meantime, Shrike's suggested that we go ahead and start looking, which seems like a fine idea, but I know us.

As soon as we set foot on a car lot, we're going to be buying a car. I have no doubt.

So, I think we ought to just not even go until we're reall ready to buy.

On the other hand, I've been looking online, and I'm already getting in the mood . . . .

Car Woes

It's Election Day in Blue State, so I played hooky to spend some time working at the polls, making phone calls, and the such.

I spent about an hour outside one of our busier polling place this morning, then came home for a break.

I'd planned to head back out for the "lunch rush" but while I was home, we got a phone call from the mechanic who's working on my car. It was not good news.

It seems that, rather than a leaking head gasket, I actually have a cracked head.

That is, my car has a cracked head.

Which I need like, well, a cracked head.

Mind you, I really don't know what any of this means until he boils it down to dollars and cents.

The answer: Lots and lots of dollars. And a few cents.

The gasket was going to be about $500 to fix.

To replace the head will be more like, well, here's how the conversation went:

Mechanic: "parts . . . labor . . . oil change . . . tax . . . I'm at around $1300 now. And, you know, your windshield is cracked."

Whozat: "Yeah. It's not going to pass inspection (in February) like that, is it?"

Mechanic: "Nope."

Whozat: "How much for that?"

Mechanic: "Another 2, 3 hundred. And I see at least one tire that probably needs to be replaced."

Whozat: "This is not $1500 car, is it?"

Mechanic: "Not really."

Soooooo, I blew off the lunch shift at the polls (it wasn't assigned or anything, I was just taking it upon myself to go above and beyond) and joined Shrike on her dog walk, so we could talk about the whole car situation.

The one thing we're certain of is that we're not going to put $1500 into a car that the Kelley Blue Book says would be worth about $900 if it were in excellent condition.

Which it totally is not.

Even in "good" condition (which is questionable, even after the repair), it might be worth about $500.

In its current condition . . .

Well, surely we could get at least that much for it, just for scrap, right?

If we don't replace the head, and just put it all back together and put some "stop leak" in it, there's no way to know how long it will hold out before it leaks water into the oil or who into the whatnow and something that sounds like it's probably a bad thing happens, resulting in a sudden lack of go.

Mechanic: "I can't tell you if it'll give you another 1000 miles, or 5000 or 100,000 . . . ."

Whozat: "Or 100?"

Mechanic: "Right."

I don't know if continuing to drive it with the leak would just mean that it's going to stop at some point, or if it could lead to something catastrophic happening to the engine, but I'm thinking that wouldn't really put it in much worse shape that it is now, in terms of trade-in value.

And, I have a cell phone and AAA and travel mostly on the interstate, so I'm not really worried about being "stranded somewhere" if it suddenly decides that it doesn't want to start. Or wants to stop.

(To be safe, I can toss a couple of -40°-rated sleeping bags in the back til spring. If it lasts that long.)

The upside is that if it poops out on us before we're ready to buy a new one, we actually do have a third vehicle. A couple of years ago, we bought a very used small pick-up truck from Shrike's dad.

Mostly it sits in the driveway, but we use it for hauling things occassionally (she's used it a lot lately to get lots and lots and lots of mulch and compost for the yard) and if we're down a car, it will get someone to work and back.

(Usually Shrike, because I work farther away, so I get to take the good car. Also, I think she likes it.)

I'm not real keen on the truck being one of our main vehicles, but it is an option, to buy us some time.

So, we'd decided to just blow off the repair and hope it lasts a while longer, at least til we have some clue how much more money we're going to be spending on Project Baby. (More on that in a moment.)

I called the mechanic back and told him not to fix it, just put it back together. That's when he pointed out that "putting it back together" would, basically, be the originally-planned $500 replacement of the gasket.

Oh.

So, while the decision to not put $1500 into it was a no-brainer, now we're trying to decide whether to put $500 into it.

It occurred to me (after the garage had closed for the evening) that they've probably already earned a good bit of the that $500, though, for the time they've spent diagnosing it, then tearing it apart.

So, now I have to call them and find out how much we'd owe if we were to just stop right now, and have it towed away. And then we'll decide whether:

a> it's worth the difference between that and $500, or

b> if we can find someone to buy it from us for more than that amount if
we just pay them to get it back and then sell it, or

c> if the mechanic wants to "buy" it from us for that amount, and just
call it even (as our transmission guy did with Shrike's last car, because we
owed him for a bunch of pointless work)

Shrike's "gear-head" buddy at work has advised us to go "all or nothing," either suck it up and fix it right, or cut our losses and get a new one.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I think that, whether we fix it or ditch it, we'll probably hold off as long as we can on buying a new ("new to us," of course, not actually "new-new") one.

I would sure feel better about doing that if I were already pregnant, and we didn't have that big financial (and everything else) question hanging over us.

On the other hand, would it be smarter to go ahead and buy one in December, when the dealers are trying to unload their inventory?

Earlier today, I was bemoaning the fact that, although I know a lot of people through my political dealings, unfortunately, none of them are used car salesmen.

Shrike said, "That's because they have no souls. So they're Republicans."