Sunday, March 18, 2012

What to do?

I am back to feeling confused as to what to do about this whole car thing.  I haven't put my car up for sale yet because I still need to clean it (inside and out) and every time I drive past the car wash, since the roads have been dry enough, there are at least ten cars waiting and I don't feel like waiting in line for an hour.  I notice that it looks like the rust is spreading.  I know that we aren't in some huge rush to get rid of it, but if it's disintegrating before our eyes, I would prefer not to be left with a heap of rusted metal and whatnot that is worth nothing.  

I still plan to clean it up and post an ad.  I am planning to be honest in the ad.  At least mention the fact that the car came from Ontario and that it has some rust.  I think I would rather mention it than have people show up and not be prepared for it.  I hope that we can pawn it off on some young person who doesn't know any better, but has a little bit of money...mwahaha.  I have a feeling that if we tried to trade it in that we wouldn't get much because of the rust.  Looking on Canadian Black Book's website, the price range for a trade in, not taking the rust into account is $6300-7500.  

I know that I can't keep the car.  I think that even if we invested money into fixing it that we would do our best to get rid of it ASAP because the rust would likely come back.  I have also read that cars from places like Ontario tend to start rusting in pretty dangerous places on the undercarriage, so we haven't even looked at that at all.  Who knows what is going on under there.  

So I guess at this point we cut our losses and try to get rid of it, whether it's a private sale, or a trade in.  I have literally spent hours looking at used cars online in the last couple of months.  I have not found anything that felt right just yet.  I can't believe how many kilometers some cars have and yet they still have really high prices.  These are not set in stone, but I would like to find something that it is newer than 2007 with a low number of kms (no more than 10-15,000/year) for around $15,000.  I think I would like something a bit bigger than what I have now, maybe a full size sedan instead of a compact.  It has to have an automatic transmission with a minimum of air/tilt/cruise, ABS and maybe power windows/locks.  I am always open to more fun options, but I certainly don't need them.  I think the only thing that would make me really second guess a great vehicle, and maybe this seems silly, is colour.  I REALLY don't want a silver or a gold/tan coloured vehicle.  I am not too picky otherwise.  And I would take silver over gold/tan.  I think I would have to say absolutely no to a gold/tan vehicle.  Maybe unless it was free...but my money is not going to pay for a gold car!  

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