No, I'm not replacing Nina. In fact, in the seven months since I got Nina I haven't really considered wanting a new or different car. I think that's the best compliment I can give Nina as I used to ALWAYS be looking around the corner for my next car. No, this is about my brother B. Since he moved in with us back in November he's primarily been driving around Mom's Escape. I know I mentioned that he borrowed my aunt's car, but that's a POS Chrysler PT Cruiser. B has a commute like I do except most of it is over interstate, and driving around these wintery highways isn't fun. So Mom's AWD Escape with all the modern safety features is a comfort. Plus, it's just nicer.
Well, as bad off as B is, he has his pride. Having to ask Mom to use her car every work day wears on him. And even though it hasn't been a problem borrowing my aunt's car for this long (she seriously cannot drive any longer and will likely never drive again), he knows it's not his car. So with tax return season upon us, he's vowed that it's car shopping season.
YAY!
At first I thought this was going to be a nitty gritty fight to find an acceptable car. You see, B got a tax return of around $6,500 and wanted to buy the new car with that. And only that. And not ALL of that. He wanted to find an acceptable car for $5,000. Now, it IS possible to get a car that's going to get you from point A to point B for that kind of money, but it won't be a car that he'll love, like, enjoy, accept, or even tolerate. Especially when driving a couple hours each working day.
I guess it's worth going over B's car history briefly. He's never been as big of a 'car guy' as me, but he does follow my same idea of loving your car. First and foremost, he is an All American Car Guy. He'd buy a Corvette over a Ferrari if they were offered at the same price. He'd take a Cadillac over a Bentley. So, his cars have all been American with no thought of ever getting something foreign. His first couple cars were mid 70's Chevy Monte Carlos. They were great old muscle cars, with engines to match, but those cars just take so much maintenance and coaxing to get to work. So when he could afford it he got a Chevy Impala that was a couple years old. I remember it clearly because it was "Lazer Blue".... meaning it was purple. B hated that I constantly called his car Barney. B followed that up with, I believe, two more Impalas. They were higher and higher trims, more and more expensive, and the last one was brand new. Once he had his third child, it was clear that the Impala was just too small, so he got a Chevy Traverse. This was a balls to the wall, every single option Chevy Traverse LTZ. It was really really nice. So I called it a mini van just to piss him off! Seriously though, it was a nice car with all the bells and whistles. After it was nearly paid off, around the time I got Fiona with all her better bells and whistles, he got another newer Traverse.
Have you ever priced a Chevy Traverse? They go for well over $50,000 and his car payment was more than what I'm paying on Nina!
Later he added his 2014 Chevy Cruze as a second vehicle. That one wasn't as nicely appointed as he bought it with cash and just picked the nicest one on the lot.
Then B's downfall. He fell behind in payments on his Traverse and eventually had it repossessed. Then he took out a loan on his Cruze and fell behind on THOSE payments. When that was repossessed, it left him car-less and that's where we're at now. So, B has only owned Chevy's and likes the nicer things in life. Buying him an even decent car for $5000 was going to be a tough road. He thought he was going to get an older Traverse in the lower trim with about 50,000 miles on it.
Yeah right. $5,000 now a days gets you a 12 year old Chevy Malibu that looks like murders happened in the back seat. Traverses, even with 100,000 miles, go for well over $10,000. So, before I got involved B decided that he'd put like $3,000 down and finance up to a price of $10,000. Where I thought my car shopping net was small as I only went out 100 miles, B only wanted to buy a car here in town. He also really REALLY wanted to get it with remote start and heated seats. So when I looked with him using Car Gurus and Autotrader we came up with:
2013 Dodge Avenger SXT for $9,000 and 52,000 miles.
2014 Dodge Journey FWD for $9,900 and 59,000 miles.
2014 Chevy Impala Limited for $9,700 and 56,000 miles.
But the real winner was going to be the 300. I found a 2007 Chrysler 300 Limited for $6,500 and 38,000 miles! Sure, it was a good 7 years older than the other cars but it had 20,000 less miles on it.
That's as far as we got on the first night. The next morning, I continued the search and added a 2012 Chevy Traverse LS for $11,900 and 72,500 miles just to show him how much of a premium he was going to pay for having a Traverse. It had NONE of the features he wanted except for the body style, and the easy seating for his family. And honestly, the Dodge Journey would get the seating WITH the features he wanted.
The last car I found was, in my mind, the best car on the list. It was a 2011 Buick LaCrosse CXL for $9,899 and 66,765 miles. It had all the features he wanted and then more. I figured he'd like the fact that it was a Buick as that's more or less just a Chevy in nicer clothes and the LaCrosse is the Buick twin to a Chevy Impalla. It's right in his wheelhouse, priced in the way he currently wants, and only has a little more miles than what we'd been looking at.
That day, while I was at work, B went to look at the Chrysler 300. Sadly that dealership doesn't finance their cars. B knows that getting credit, even at a horrible interest rate, is going to help him rebuild his financial well being. So that was a no go. He then went to look at the Buick but it was sold. I had found a Cadillac XRX Luxury at the same lot with 70,000 miles for $13,000 and B went to look at it but the salesman convinced him that it would be too expensive over it's life as repairs were just so damned expensive. Especially with B putting like 20,000 miles annually on it.
Naturally, the salesman had another car for B to look at. A 2016 Buick LaCrosse with the features B wants. It's a gorgeous deep red called Garnet and it's the newer, most current, body style. B was close to taking it for a test drive, but it was $14,500 and had 70,000 miles on it.
When I got home B told me about his shopping trip and I understood his dilema. Two weeks ago he was planning on getting a good enough car for $5000. Now he's finding out that the cars he finds acceptable are going for over $14,000. We crunched some numbers together and figured that a $10,000 car would still be best, but he could afford up to $15,000. He still had the Impala to look at, but it's hard to look at 'good enough' when you've seen better and know it's in your reach. So I did a little more digging, focusing only on the dealership that had the '14 Impala. I found 2 Chevy Malibus that might fit the bill. They're both around $14,500. Both have around 44,500 miles. One is a 2017 with remote start, while the other is a 2016 with remote start, leather, and heated seats.
B is out looking at those cars now and I personally don't know which one I'd recomend. I think it comes down to three. The '14 Impala, the '16 Malibu, and the '16 LaCrosse.
Let's assume he's putting $3,000 down and financing at 9% for 5 years. The Impala would be a $135 monthly payment. The other two would be a $240 monthly payment. $105 a month is nothing to sneeze at, so obviously the Impala is a much better deal. BUT, he won't love it. He's had same model before, except it was an LTZ trim with all the toys. Plus he's been driving Mom's '15 Escape with all it's toys for a few months now.
Just as I wrote that last paragraph, B came home. He got to look at the '14 Impala and it's out of the running. It's not horrible, but there's some rust bubbling up under the hood and it looks like it was already painted over at least once. There's a large gouge in the passenger mirror and several scratches on the trunk lid. Not anything you shouldn't expect in a car that age, but still... it was in the running because it was a good deal. For a car that's less than ideal, it's not as good of a deal and we could surely find something cheaper with similar damage to it.
He looked at the Malibus (it turns out the dealer has like 12 used ones all around the same price), but he noted that it's back seat was a lot more like his Cruze than the Impala. His thought is that if he was okay with the smaller back seat, he could probably find a better equipped Cruze in it's new body style (which basically looks like a Malibu) for less money.
As the dealership had just closed, he took his wife over to look at the LaCrosse... and she liked it too. yeah, it has 30,000 more miles on it, but it's the size of his former Impala, it has most if not all of the cool techy toys, and it looks good. We talked it over for a bit and he's probably going to go to the dealership on Monday to test drive it, make sure he can get financed, and then begin the negotiation. As he's pricing it out at the sticker price and not a lower price, I think he'll drive away with it and I'll get to see it Monday night after work.
Of course, now the Chevy bow tie in the header graphic is even more misleading. :)
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