Buying A New Used Car...

As I mentioned in my birthday post, I bought a new used car and here is how that all went down...

Back in December my 1998 Saturn SL2 started giving me a lot of trouble. It wasn't starting, it needed to be jump constantly, etc. So I finally decided that after almost twelve years of owning her that it was time to get rid of her because she wasn't worth all of the time and money I was pouring into her -- Yes, the Saturn was a she and she could be a fickle bitch. So that's when I started looking into different cars, loan options, etc.

After milling over my options I decided that the best course for me was to buy used and borrow some money against my retirement because it was already my money and I didn't have to insure the car a certain way because it was a bank's money. So after applying to borrow my own money and eventually receiving it, I started really looking for cars.

Initially I was looking for a 2012 or newer car, mainly a Honda Civic, with decent mileage (Mainly because I was terrified of getting a car that may or may not have been flooded during Hurricane Sandy) but the ones from the Honda dealerships were ridiculous priced and the dealer I dealt with at the one Honda I went to came off as an evil shady bitch -- Yes, I realize that most people who work in car dealerships are slime balls but still.

Eventually I decided to listen to my father who had been urging me to look at cars a few model years earlier than 2012 and we both searched online and car magazines until we found some acceptable options at Atlantic Volkswagen. So on my birthday my father and I went to the dealership to test drive some of the cars we had seen throughout our searches.

We greeted in a much nicer fashion than at the evil Honda dealership that I shall not name. And started dealing with a sales woman named Nadia who was extremely nice and helpful.

I went over exactly what I was looking for with her (Which to be honest with you wasn't much considering I was used to driving a 1998 Saturn with crank windows, a cassette deck and no AC), my budget and that I intended on paying for a car in cash.

She looked at what she had in stock in my price range (Which we knew about because we had done our research) and started looking at the cars in the lot.

I looked at a handful of cars that were just okay and then I started looking at a 2008 Volkswagen Jetta, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind but it was pretty nice looking so I took it for a test drive.

Unfortunately I didn't really care for the way it drove, so it was on to the next...

After deciding that the Jetta wasn't for me Nadia showed my father and I at 2008 Hyundai Elantra and since I liked the way it looked I took it for a spin.

I was much happier with the way that the Elantra drove and decided that it was the car for me. So we went back inside and begun the paperwork.

After dealing with all of the insurance, license plates and payment stuff I was the proud owner of a new used car that I couldn't take home just yet because it needed to be detailed -- Which I was cool with.

So two days later my car was detailed and I was able to pick it up.

And now I am the happy owner of a 2008 Hyundai Elantra, whose windshield I cracked driving on the LIE the day after I got the car and have since had fixed by Safelite. If anyone is interested about dealing with Safelite I can totally write a blog post about it.