Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Yes, we are officially crunchy granola Obama Democrats. We bought a Prius.

Beep Beep! Don't make me drive you over in my electric car!

With the move out of Brooklyn and impending move to North Carolina, we were pretty certain we needed a car. Now Nick and I have never had a mutual car. He had his company car for a while which he used to haul books to B&Ns around the tri-state area and I loved for its Obama-placard box-hauling capacity. Then I got the Hooptie, aka The Iron Giant, aka The Caddy from my Dad–gold plated keys and all–for the campaign trip out to Colorado/Iowa (Sheila’s Hubby is keeping her well taken care of). One car was Nick’s, one was “mine.” This is OURS. So oddly adult of us.

So we had been looking for about a month online, doing the research on different car makes and models. We were pretty certain we were going to get something from Toyota or Honda. Sorry American-made cars, the ones in our price range were all turds. And you can put bling on a turd, but it still is a pile of shit, even with a MP3 hook-ups.

We got the 2009 Consumer Report guide on used cars and searched used models for sale in NC as well as around the DC area. Consumer Reports LOVES Priuses (Prii? Octopus, Octopi…). They claim pretty much nothing is wrong with any of them. They can be Ancient Evil Prii who are first generation hybrid technology, are mean to their mothers and attack woodland creatures and Consumer Reports would still say you should pay over $14 grand for it at the dealer. And that’s about where most dealers have them priced, if not for much, much more. So when last week, upon dropping me off at the Shady Grove Metro station, Nick spotted a gold 2005 Prius for sale at a Dodge dealer for under 11K he assumed something must be very, very wrong with it. We decided to check it out later anyway.

Funny thing was the Carfax on it was completely clean. In fact, the person who had it did the unthinkable–he maintained it regularly! Lots of check-ups, filter and oil changes. No accidents. No real dents or rust. Fairly new tires. He traded it in for a Mercedes the salesman told us. Hmm, right. It had a TON of miles on it–over 90K. “The guy who owned it before was local but a salesman and drove it all over, but see! (pointing to Carfax) He took care of it!” We took it for a spin.

Priuses/Prii are so fun! It’s horrible, I immediately was hooked on getting the computer to tell me I had the highest MPG in the history of Prius drivers. I want, “You Win!!” to flash and computer fireworks to explode on the touchscreen like on an old-school game of Windows Solitaire. The seats were comfy, the brakes were sensitive, the interior was clean.

We assumed something really bad must be wrong with this car.

We went and looked at other cars. Other dealers. Ford, Toyota, Honda, one of those car supermarket-like places. test drove a new blinged-out Focus and my legs sweat on the leather seats and it was cramped and the air-conditioner blew a small piece of timber into Nick’s eye while he was driving. Plus “Willy” the annoying salesman would NOT SHUT UP from the backseat about how we should buy American. Well you know what Willy? 1) Lot’s of foreign cars are assembled in the USA. 2) Lots of domestic cars SUCK. End of story. I want something that will last for 200,000 miles and get good gas mileage. Is that too much to ask?

You can hardly see me, but I'm there! The other picture we have makes me look stupid.

We drove some Corollas, Camery, etc. We could pay about the same as the Prius, but for a 2002 Corolla with hardly any miles and manual windows. We went home and thought about it, talked it over with Nick’s parents who seemed fine with the high mileage of the Prius. Next day we called the dealer and pretended we were new people interested in the car. The salesman stuck to his story about the trade-in and said the only reason the price was low is that it had started higher but was on the lot for over 60 days and they wanted to move it. Even used “the nice couple who was here yesterday and saw it on their way to the Metro” as an example of the interest in the car. Nick’s Dad offered to come find fault in the car later that same day, but he seemed surprised it was in such good condition.

So we decided to do it. After a day of taking it to a Toyota dealership for a checkup (get new wipers and air filters–which are BRAND NEW already), figuring out how to tag & title it, and how to get insurance, which was complicated:

“um, yea, my license is from Pennsylvania, his is from New York. We are living in Maryland FOR NOW, but will be moving to North Carolina in a month. Insurance? Um, not yet…”

…and Nick’s parents being AWESOME and helpful, we drove our little gold Prius home and it’s sitting in the driveway.

I do not know what the little black square button the the door handle does yet. I do not know how to reset the radio channels, or what those buttons on the rear-view mirror do yet. I am currently sitting here waiting to read through the manual. I do know, thanks to the Internet, that one should never put clay sculptures near the touchscreen, and not to freak out if the battery drains.

I’ll let you all know when something awful happens or when the car turns out to be an Impala in a Prius veneer. But right now, I just feel like a little kid with a cool new toy.

Vroom!