NEW CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it all started Thursday night. I just didn’t want to write about it unless it actually worked out! Phillip saw an ad at school for a 2003 Atos for $3500. We thought that seemed like a great deal for a 2003 and thought maybe we should call. (We had wondered several times already if maybe we should buy a new car and just try to sell ours. We knew we would take a loss on it, because we paid way too much for it to begin with, plus put about $300 into fixing it already. And it still had major issues. Total piece of crap car…and that’s putting it nicely! Everything under the hood looked terrible! Everything is rusty and some pipes even have holes in them and are falling apart. We figured if we kept it, it would definitely keep having problems! It only worked approximately half of the time anyway, which was really frustrating!!! And we were always afraid we’d get stranded somewhere. Plus, by the time we leave, it will be worth even less since it’s so old…it’s a 1998. So we’d keep putting money into it, yet get less back for it. So we wondered if it would be best in the long run to just take our losses and be rid of the stupid thing.) We just couldn’t quite decide though because we hated the thought of losing so much money on it. But it’s obviously not worth the $3,000 we paid, or $3300 that we have into it now since having several things fixed on it! Soooo…what to do?!?!?

Well, we decided to call about the car just to see. We called Friday evening and the guy said meet me in half an hour to test drive it! I was convinced after driving it!!!!! It’s wonderful! It actually rides smooth! Under the hood looks amazing…it looks in perfect condition! And it’s kind of a cute little car…a lot of people here drive cars like this. It’s kind of boxy in the back, no trunk…opens like an SUV in the back, but just a small place back there for stuff. Definitely different. It looked so great! We knew then that we wanted the car. The guy even told us that we could take it to any mechanic we wanted to have him check it out…he assured us that we’d have no problems with it in our 2 years here. (Yes, I know…things can always go wrong and we’ll be pretty upset if this turns out bad too, which it could. But the old car was pretty much guaranteed to be a constant nightmare!) Anyway, we took that as a good sign and decided to have Charles check it out for us. However, being the weekend…it was difficult to get ahold of him. So we were hoping to have him look at it Monday but he was too busy with his rental car business and the guy called saying he needed an answer from us. He had 2 other people wanting the car as well and one was even trying to hand him the cash for it. (One person stopped him about it while we were test driving it even!) But he was waiting on us since we test drove it first! We decided to take it! Hope we weren’t crazy!!!! He did come down to $3400 for us. (Five years newer than our old car and barely cost more!!!!) So we met him Monday evening, paid him $1000 down payment, and wrote out 2 copies saying what we already payed and what we still owe. We all signed and then each kept a copy. He actually buys used cars, fixes everything on them, and then resells them. He explained that his partner actually works at AUC, which explains why he was able to advertise there. He said he’d park it at AUC and leave the keys with his partner. Then when we pay the rest of the money to his partner, we can have the keys. He also told us he promises we are getting a good deal, because most of his business comes from AUC students. He said word spreads fast and if I give someone a bad car, no one will want to buy from me! Does make sense…just hope it’s true!!!!!

So Charles has a friend who was interested in our car!!!! (We are pretty sure his friend buys them, fixes them, and resells them also…it’s a decent job here where jobs are so hard to get!) He came this morning at 6:52 to look at it. He said power steering is definitely going out. (We assumed the same thing because it makes a terrible noise anytime you turn it!!!! He said he has to replace the tires…no surprise there either…they were terrible. He looked under the hood and said there’s an oil leak too! We didn’t know that, but he showed us where! He wouldn’t budge a penny over $2000. Call us crazy, but we took it! I know it’s a huge loss. But it makes sense…it really isn’t worth more than that, even with all the stuff we had done to it, since it has all of those issues and is so old! Plus this way, we won’t have to worry about listing it, meeting people to show it, worrying about it never selling, etc. Plus if we kept it for awhile, we’d still have to drive it every few days because if it sits too long without being driven, it doesn’t like to start! Just easier this way!

So he said he had to go to the bank for the money and would call us around 9:00 to come back and pay us. He didn’t call till 10:15! I was getting worried…I was afraid he may have changed his mind. Phillip was in class so I was prepared to handle it! (I hate dealing with stuff like this!) When I got down there though, he wanted to test drive it! We figured he would have wanted to this morning and he didn’t. But he wanted to now. I couldn’t just let him drive away with the car, so I went with him. I didn’t exactly love the idea of going with a total stranger I must admit. But since Charles knew him, I had to trust him. It was perfectly fine and he only went a few blocks…not far at all! He was a nice guy. So he was signing paperwork when Phillip walked back from class. He counted out the money and I did count to double check. We got our $2000 cash and were soooooo happy to see that car disappear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We came inside and called the guy we’re buying a car from. We wanted to let him know we have the money way sooner than we expected. He was surprised! He said he’d meet us this evening then to finish buying the car!

I spent the afternoon studying!!!!!!! Wow that sounds weird! It’s been almost 3 years since I’ve been in class. That is hard to believe! I took a pre-class survey and turned in a short biography to the professor. Then I started reading in the textbook. I am such a slow reader when it comes to textbooks…that’s the worst part! Anyway, my goal is to get the first assignment posted by Friday. I hope it happens!

We met the guy tonight and paid for the car! We got to drive it home! Phillip said “Well it definitely drives better than the other one!” The guy plans to meet us tomorrow though to fix a couple more little things on it. The back doors are stuck shut! Hmmmm…. So hopefully that gets fixed tomorrow. At least it drives well though…guess we could always climb over the seat! Haha! Just kidding…surely that can be fixed! :-)