September 9, 2005 – Love Affairs with Cars

September 9, 2005 – Love Affairs with Cars

I had trouble with my car, a 1998 European 4-door, touring sedan that I treated myself to after the last publishing company I worked for was sold to a large European publishing concern. I’ve kept the car because I really like driving it and it’s got the smoothest ride of any car I’ve ever owned. And I’ve owned many since I turned 21. I think of each as ex-girlfriends that I had a wonderful affair with until I met a younger more attractive model that stole my heart. I didn’t so much have buyer’s remorse when I left the dealership as I felt I had betrayed a long time companion. I know, cars are inanimate objects with no feelings, but I can’t help feeling the emotion. Some of this is probably due to my father never getting rid of any car he has ever owned. In his case, he has a harem of past companions that will be spared the junkyard crusher perhaps for some time to come. He’s willed them to my brother Danny, who like my father has a soft spot for mechanical playthings, particularly old ones.

My European car has over 115,000 miles and it still runs well, but it’s beginning to show its age. An oil leak and faulty taillight took me to the repair shop two weeks ago. I get the car out of the shop only to have the air-conditioning fan go out. The repair shop at the dealership wanted an arm and a leg so I found an independent repair shop on Winfield Avenue that specializes in European cars. Since my dealer had pinpointed the problem at no charge, I brought the car to the Winfield Avenue shop, told him the problem I needed fixed and asked for an estimate: half of what the dealer estimated the repairs would run. On this particular car model, the blower motor is located behind the dashboard, which means that the entire dashboard had to be removed to replace the faulty module. That was two weeks ago today. He kept the car until the following Wednesday and in the meantime I had the pleasure of driving a Chevrolet Cavalier from Enterprise Rent-a-Car at Almaden Expressway and Blossom Hill Road.

Of the earlier cars my wife IM and I have owned our first and second held special places in our hearts. Our second car was a forest green 1972 Pontiac Station Wagon, with three rows of seats. We bought the car on one of our trips from Dallas to El Paso to visit my folks. I had used vacation to extend a weekend a couple of days and IM and I started talking about the 130,000-plus miles we had put on our first car a 1967 Buick Grand Sport, 2-door coupe. We drove everywhere. It was our one form of entertainment. We had contemplated the change after our youngest daughter RD was born. We needed a bigger car to carry our two daughters and all their “things.” Our eldest ME was four years old and loved to play around in the back seat—this was before mandatory child seats and seat belt laws. Now she had two seats to roam around in. We had arrived in El Paso Saturday evening June 3rd 1972. On that Sunday, IM and I decided to start looking at new cars. Our first stop was Fred Schneider Pontiac on Montana Avenue near the El Paso International Airport, long since gone. The salesman showed us the new green station wagon. It was a pretty car. We took a test drive. It rode well and handled nicely. We came back and began bickering over the price. We must have sat in the salesman’s office for a good hour as he brought three different offers to us, none of which we accepted.

IM does not do well in negotiating sessions. She gets angry, frustrated, and wants to leave. Each time the salesman left to take the offer to the sales manager, she would say, “let’s go.” After the salesman returned the third time and the offer was no nearer our price, we said “thanks” and left taking the paper with his last offer with us. We went back to my parents’ place for a while to think over the days’ events. It was mid afternoon and dinner wasn’t for a while. After talking it over with my dad, IM and I decided to try another couple of dealers now that we had an offer we could use to bargain with. Our first stop was an Oldsmobile dealership on Montana—I think the name was Horn Oldsmobile. The salesman had “just the car for us,” he exclaimed once we told him what we were looking for. It was a new station wagon that had been used by the owner’s wife for a short time. It had low mileage and would carry the full warranty beginning from the mileage on the odometer. It was a two-tone red in color—I can’t recall the second color—with a couple of extra features the Pontiac lacked. Its one drawback was it didn’t have the third seat—why that was important to us, I can’t recall, since we couldn’t think of putting the kids that far back in the car. We needed to be able to grab them when they misbehaved and they would be out of reach in the rear.

When the salesman presented his first offer—a few $100 more than the Pontiac—we left and went to Nance Buick Company on Montana. It was the dealership where we bought the Buick we planned to trade in. When they realized that the car was one they had sold, the salesman said he was sure they could come up with something that we would like. We looked at a couple of station wagons they had on the lot and settled on a blue one with the same features as the Pontiac we’d seen first. After the ritual of the test drive and returning to the salesman’s office we waited for the mechanics to check over the Buick we were trading in. Once the evaluation of the buick was complete, the salesmen returned with his paperwork. He presented us with his offer for an out-the-door price, after considering our trade in, that was less than the Oldsmobile but more than the Pontiac. IM and I were not attached to either car by this time and would have taken either if they came up with the right price. We showed him the price we’d been quoted by the Pontiac dealer and he excused himself while he took the offer to his sales manager to see what they could do. I think that all new car negotiation involve some amount of waiting to wear the buyer down. After what seemed like a long time, the salesman returned with an offer that matched the one from the Pontiac dealer.

IM and I looked at one another and both said “thanks, no” and left. We had had it for the day. We had determined that it was time to quit looking for the day and reevaluate whether we wanted to take on a new car payment or not. After dinner Sunday evening, my dad suggested we return first thing Monday morning—we planned to return to Dallas on Tuesday—to the Pontiac dealer and put it to him that the Buick dealer has matched the price on the Pontiac. Did he want to lower his price to win the deal. It would also give me time to call the Credit Union in Richardson, Texas to ask them if the price we’d been quoted was the best we could expect to get. The credit union agent who answered the phone assured me the quote was about right for the Pontiac and Buick but thought the dealer could come down some more if he wanted to make the deal. I got approval for the car loan over the phone and he gave me a phone number to give to the car dealer if I decided to make the purchase. On returning to the Pontiac dealer just before noon on Monday, IM and I found the salesman we had been dealing with on Sunday and explained that we had the same offer from Nance Buick for a similar equipped station wagon. Would he better his offer to win the business? Back to the salesman’s office for another mandatory wait while the sales manager and salesman used more psychology on us. After a shorter delay than the day before—or perhaps we had reconciled ourselves to a longer delay—the salesman returned with an offer that was lower by a couple $100. Not what we had wanted but better than we had expected to pay.

Thus, we became owners of our second car. I felt bad leaving the Buick behind as we drove away in the new station wagon. It had served us well, carrying IM and me into married life—2600 miles the day after we drove it off the lot on July 13th 1967. The Buick carried IM to the Prince George’s Hospital in Cheverly, Maryland to give birth to our first born ME on February 14th 1968 and it had brought the two of them back to our apartment in Landover, Maryland. In the time between, it had carried me daily during the week between Landover, Greenbelt, and Bethesda and on the weekend had ferried the three of us all over Washington DC and its suburbs, and on several occasions to Long Island and back to visit IM’s friends. And a few months over a year after first hauling us to Maryland, the Buick carried the three of us another 1400 miles through Virginia, the length of Tennessee, and across Arkansas to Dallas. Thereafter, it had carried us numerous times back and forth the 1300 miles roundtrip between Dallas and El Paso. In all these many miles it had carried us in air-conditioned comfort and never once letting us down. How can you not feel some emotion for such a dependable machine?