Thursday, June 12, 2008

Time for a new car?

I'm surprisingly in a good mood for how my morning started off!

After several weeks of talking about it, last night I played tennis with a friend from work at some courts near the office. It was a good time, although we only played for about an hour. I just didn't have the energy to keep going after 7. Anyway, in the middle of playing I took of my sunglasses and set them next to the court, telling myself, "Michael, *don't* forget your sunglasses when you leave!" Of course, I forgot my sunglasses, realizing it only when I got home an hour later.

Onto this morning... I left the house early to head back to the courts to see if, by some miracle, my Oakleys were there. No miracle. Who plays tennis after 7:00 at night in the rain? Apparently people in Vinings do. And those Vinings bastards took the sunglasses I've had since my wife bought them for me for Valentine's Day 4 years ago. Maybe the property management company has them... Doubtful, but I'll call.

Dejectedly I got back into my car to head to the office... Except the Jetta wouldn't start. Massive FAIL. It turns over once - chachunk! - and nothing else. I called a guy from work who usually comes in early and, thankfully, he was able to swing by and pick me up. As I was sitting in my car contemplating how expensive the fix would be, especially factoring in a tow truck, I started to think if the problem was electrical. So when my office mate arrived, we tried jumping the VW. Success! I drove the car to the VW deal up the street from the office, he followed, and we went to the office together.

My Jetta is 8 years old, has 110K miles on it, and this is now 3 trips to the dealer since October. The first two trips cost $1500 each, and this one will cost around $200 for a new battery. We've been talking about getting a new car for me later this year, but I may want to accelerate those plans a few months. I've been leaning towards a few cars - a Mini Cooper, the Passat Wagon, and the Mazda 3. Any ideas or suggestions? I want something that's fun to drive and with decent gas mileage. Oh, and I want to be able to afford it. Maybe a Scion? Yaris? We'll see.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mini! I zipcar'd one a few times last week.. so much fun!

LeahAndMark.com said...

Hmmm... those are a range of cars there... from a mini cooper to a passat wagon?

I guess a mazda 3 would be closer to the middle of those two.