Chapter Thirty-One
An Echo Echo
May 18-21, 2009—Car Shopping: Most of our time in Kansas City was spent car shopping. Jenny did all the brain-work, and Mom and Dad were the chauffeurs—taking her to the different cars she uncovered on Craigslist. It was important to complete this before we left, since she needed us for transportation to the car candidates.
The intergoogle sure helps with buying a used car, from CARFAX reports and user reviews to forums full of enthusiasts devoted to a particular car model. And a GPS is great when you need to drive to ten different owner locations for test drives. In my day, we’d just trudge the five miles through the snow and kick the tires.
This was a major job: Jenny would run a CARFAX report, Gunilla would take us to a car, Jenny would test drive it, and, if interested, take it to an autoshop for evaluation.
We took a break at Warren Buffett’s CORT furniture store where Jenny had a gift certificate. While she and Lena were shopping, I amused myself playing with the Warren Buffett cardboard cutout. Here I am giving him some stock advice, which he is not taking seriously. Perhaps he should call Sadie (the dog at my accountant’s office).
Speaking of cars, in the midst of all this driving, our Echo reached the milestone of 150,000 miles [as I’m writing this book, it’s at 220,000 miles].
Jenny ended up with a 2001 Toyota Echo with only 78,000 miles listed for $4,500. This was just what she'd been looking for. She had the seller meet her at an auto shop where it got a clean bill of health, and after a few hours of haggling, she got it for $4,100.
Note that the above narrative doesn't convey all the complicated logistics of finding mechanics, driving here and there, following each other on the highway, and cell-phone negotiations. These were exhausting days for all.
But we picked up her new car the night before our departure, and packed ours for the trip home.
Turns out there’s more to this story. Two years after buying it, Jenny’s red Echo had a fender bender. The shop fixing it called her in while it was up on a lift, and said, “Take a look at that.” An important frame component was dented, and the mechanic said that the car wasn’t safe to drive. Apparently the mechanic that inspected it two years prior had missed that.
She easily sold it for $1,400 with full disclosure (people couldn’t resist the bargain) and bought a new car. So the moral of the story is that even if you do everything right, and get the car inspected, you still might miss something.
Stay tuned for our first major mishap!