Four wheels and something to sit on

[slipjig3]

Car: I can has! With Harold the Hoopty Car not merely dead but most sincerely dead, I went out to do some preliminary window-shopping for a replacement, only to end up, after exactly one stop and one test drive, as the quasi-owner (read: lease holder) of a white 2012 4-door Honda Civic, which makes me very happy indeed! Some thoughts and tales on the matter:

1) Thank the gods that I looked into the leasing option, because there's no way I'd have been able to afford to straight-up buy anything more recent than the Clinton administration or with a duct-tape-to-actual-car ratio low enough to be street legal. This is where getting a Honda really paid off—with a lease, you don't pay for the car so much as the depreciation, and with a Civic, to be frank, there really isn't any. (Plus "last year's model" = "please help us poor dealers get this thing off our hands.")

2) They gave me the ol' song and dance about interior-exterior protection, which I declined due to financial concerns. Then they did the same for the tires, and I lunged at it. Dirt road through New England forest-land, don'cha know.

3) My brain picked out the name for the car the same way it picked out the protagonist Tala's name for the novel: by slipping it sideways into a sentence in my head like pork barrel spending into a spending bill. "So," I thought, "once I find a car WHICH WILL BE NAMED RUFUS, I'll be...wait, what?" Unfortunately this happened before I found the right car, which leads to a bit of irony in the naming, but it's already stuck long enough for me to post about it, so what the hell ever.

4) The guy who sold it to me was a great guy, but I still think I'll decline the Facebook friend request.

5) Man oh man, is the mileage limit going to make me paranoid....

6) Bluetooth. Word.

7) It's amazing how driving a new car can make you realize what a rolling Balkan deathtrap your old car was. Fun fact: I drove home in the snow today and didn't die. Score!

Comments

[stagger-lee77.livejournal.com]

i can tell you that i LOVE my 2011 civic, and like you, i stopped at one dealership, did one test drive, and was out the door.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the new wheels!

[rubian77.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the Honda family!!! ♥ My coworker had a Honda, switched to Saturn, then after much aggravation, went back to Honda and LOVES her Accord. And as another testimonial...my Insight has over 270k miles and is over 10 years old, and runs great.

I can't say as I've ever leased a car... But yeah, Honda has some *fabulous* leasing deals going on, so super cool for you!!

Regarding the mileage limit -- is there a surcharge if you go over? How's that work?

[fiddledragon]

What is the mileage limit? If it's 10000/year, that could be a problem. But if it's 15000 to 18000, you should be golden.

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

Leased a Civic in 2002. Wound up getting a surprise $200 back at the end. Apparently there was some kind of security thing?

[sariel-t.livejournal.com]

Sweeeeeeeeet.

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! But I think that it should be red, given the name.

[antsswarm.livejournal.com]

Fantastic!!!!!!!! Long live Rufus!!!