When I graduated from college, my mom was generous enough to buy herself a new car and give me her old one. (In the car's defense was not THAT old. It was a '95 Honda Civic, 4 doors, stick shift, cute, white and had a moon roof!) If you know anything about Hondas, you know they have a reputation of lasting forever. My family is a Honda Family.
I will never forget that Thanksgiving in 2002 when my mom had my cousin and I go car shopping for her. She was pretty sure she knew what kind of car she wanted (a CRV) and she also knew she did not want to deal with the car salesmen. So she sent us instead to test drive and browse the options. We met a nice salesman (no, really!), test drove a few cars and then sent her to do the deal. Now I knew that there was a possibility that my mom would trade in her old Civic to cut down the cost of her new car. But inside I was reeeally hoping she would give the Civic to me. (Bear in mind that my very first car was an '86 Mazda Hatchback with no radio or speakers that was falling apart at the seams. It died on me at the beginning of my junior year of college, and sat collecting dust parked behind my sorority house until a Mexican left a barely legible note on it telling me he would buy it for $100. I sold it to him. I hadn't had a [functional] car for 2 years and was forced to walk everywhere or bum rides off my boyfriend and sorority sisters. So yeah, I wanted needed a car.) When Mom walked out of the dealership, she handed me the key to her old car. I was beyond thrilled! My Mom was an angel from heaven and there were rainbows falling from the sky and soft fluffy kittens playing at my feet. My cousin and I drove back to school down the coast highway with every window down and the radio playing as loud as it would go. We felt like we were 16 again.
Fast forward 5 years to 2008 and the Civic which had served my mom and I so well now had 213,000 miles on it and was on her last legs. The last year I had her she required numerous costly repairs, to the point where the repairs were exceeding the value of the car. That is when you stop and ask yourself why am I still pouring money into this old beat up car? There was one week in particular where I was driving a rental car (as my Civic was not starting) and I had this moment of clarity (ah-HA!) and decided it was time to stop wasting money on repairs and rentals cars and go buy myself a new one. I called in sick to work and walked down to the rental car, parked next to my old Civic. Some weird gut sense in me told me to try to start the ol car one last time. You will never believe this -- she started! I took that as a sign and drove straight over to the Honda dealership.
I knew what I wanted: a brand new 2008 Honda Accord Coupe. The coupe was so much cuter than the 4 door. I do not have any kids and do not plan on having any in my foreseeable future, so I fugure why not display that fact prominently. After test driving the car, I went into the dealership to do The Deal. I knew I probably looked like the ideal prey for any decent salesman. I mean, come on, this was my first car buying experience, I was alone, single and driving a p.o.s. with a huge dent in the side of it (some amazing kid backed into me in a parking garage and I took the insurance money and paid off my credit card. Priorities.) I think I surprised even myself as I had done my research and knew what I could get my new car for and what I could get for the trade in value on the Civic. We went back and forth for at least 4 hours until I was finally satisfied. I signed the paperwork and the car was mine!
About 20 minutes after I'd signed the deal, one of the techs who worked at the dealership came up to me and asked if I'd ever had problems with the Civic not starting.
"Nope."
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