A 'lil HooHaa

Ha. Get it? End of the road? I’m getting a car. Road. Ha! Nevermind…

Well, I’ve given a lot of thought to all this and finally came up with a decision. And I went in a total different direction.

I sat down and discussed the car situation with my mother today. Good advice giver those parents can be. And usually, when I can’t make any sense _ AND _ no matter how old I get, parents still are good ones to turn to. Anyway, after realizing I needed to weigh my options and the pros and cons to the Integra, I opted to call around to see if any local dealers had any 5-speeds.

Oh, backing up a bit, I found out for sure the lemon law doesn’t cover private sales. And I didn’t want to get hosed.

So I’m calling around and the second place I call is the VW dealership here. They have some audis, some VWs, all high miles and a little over my range. But they had a Dodge Dakota. Whooopie.

Off the cuff, I ask about leasing. They have the $199 per month deal going for a 2005 Jetta. I say I need more than 12,000 miles though and he says we can do whatever. So he prices 15,000 per year _ 209 per month. Sweet. The one I drove was 212 cause it had a couple other options. No moon roof, but it is a 5-speed.

So I go try one out. I love it. Drives nice, it’s sweet. I’m in like flint, so to speak. On Thursday, I go back to do all the paper work. Hopefully by the time I head to work Thursday, I’ll have some new wheels.

And so ends my journey. Seems like it all happened for a reason. I drove out of the VW dealer with a big-ass smile today. First time I’ve been like that when thinking about cars in a long time.

I’m going to get this all going by talking about some changes you may have noticed to hoohaaDOTcom.

First, what I’m posting in. The blogging system. A while back, I talked to several members of the message board about doing a blogging system. A bunch offered to get in, do different days and topics, and to do it on a regular basis. However, I set it up and then got a little busy and never got to fill everyone in on how the things work and all. One person posted, but, again, I never got going on my end.

So when I had the chance to add this to the message board, I opted to. This way, the people who were originally going to blog for the site still can. And now, others can get involved and have their own as well. Some people might choose to do something weekly, maybe daily, maybe different time frames. Maybe one topic, maybe more, etc. Who knows. But, it gives members a chance to have one if wanted.

For me, I’m going to basically go with a inside my world sort of thing. I might talk about baseball. I might talk about personal shit. I might just talk in a random sort of way, kind of like I’m doing now.

One thing. If you create a blog, please use it. If it goes for too long and nothing is done to it, I’ll delete it as it’s taking up space for nothing.

Now then, you’ll also hopefully note the gallery. This is where you’ll be able to post your own photos. Please nothing crazy, sick, perverted, etc. Just make it a normal photo album. Big thing is this _ keep the photos where they belong. Your random photos, people, stuff like that go under the second “member’s gallery.” The first one is an overall one which shows everything that is posted. The other category is travel photos. Please keep them to travel shots and shots of where you’ve visited etc. If there are shots with you/others with something in the background, feel free to put them there. If they are party shots while traveling, please put them in the normal one.

Anyway, hope all the members really enjoy the new add-ons and will take advantage of them. Any questions, feel free to PM me on here.

OK, so I’ve opted to at least look at a couple other cars.

I’ve found a place in Albany with a bunch of VWs. The lowest mileage one is a VW Jetta (99) with 57,500 or somewhere around there. I don’t know if I’ll go up there, or somewhere else. Either way, I’d like to try and be in this new car by Friday AM and head off to softball states.

They also have a Cabrio, and a couple newer jettas. The one is a Jetta (2000) with a v-6, 5-speed, loaded. With like 84K miles on it for right around $8,000. Can’t decide if I’d want to plop down 8 grand on a car with that many miles, VW or not.

Anyway, the kid selling the Integra has now come down to 8,000. As I’ve told him I can basically spend around 7,500 (which is true). I told him I’d be in touch in a couple of days. I think I might be able to pull him down to 7,800 and then maybe I’ll go with it. Who knows.

What really sucks about this whole thing is that I wasn’t planning on a new car. And now, all of a sudden, whamo… screw you and buy a car, beyatch! Grrrrr.

I went and looked at the car today and it’s a nice set of wheels. Anyway, here’s the report.

It’s in extremly good shape, I thought. A couple of cosmetic spots on the front and rear bumpers. However, that’s the plastic spots and it won’t rust, so bonus.

The antenna might be broken. I couldn’t tell. If so, I’ll have to mention that. However, I have XM, so I could hold off getting it fixed.

Back tires would likely need to replaced by the end of summer, so I have to take that into account.

The engine was amazingly clean. I mean it looked like friggin new. The person who owns the car has kept in incredible condition, that’s for sure. Good job by him without a doubt.

Driving it…

The clutch is nice, gears catch quickly. It also shifts smooth and doesn’t have a shimmy or pull to it. The brakes seemed to be in sync well with the rotors. The front pads are new, the back pads are about halfway through.

Now, I’m not the smallest or biggest guy in the world, but it’s a tight fit. I’ve now realized the Integra is basically the sports car Civic. I’ve had smaller cars before and adjusted, so I think I can easily do it again. I also think it would be a lot of fun to drive this car, which is nice.

I won’t like that the salvage certificate scares me a little and he didn’t know much about it. He got it from a dealer. However, he’s owned the car for over a year and had no problems, which is a good sign. I’m highly interested.

I’ve got him down to $8500. I wouldn’t mind going a little lower, if not just because of the numbers I’ve run on taxes, my current loan, etc. Just to make it more managable. I’ll likely try and call him tomorrow and discuss things. If we can work things out a little more, I wouldn’t mind having him bring it to a mechanic in his town to get it checked out and get a clean bill of health.

Maybe this looking for a car will end a little quicker than I had hoped. Or so I can hope anyway! As always, thoughts are appreciated!

I’m going to look at the Integra on Saturday. Hoping all works out well.

However, I did a Carfax report on it and it has been salvaged at one point and time. So an insurance company has totalled it at some point. However, the one note it shows is “recovered theft,” which likely means it was stolen, totalled, and then recovered. I’d just like to know if this car was wrecked at all and not sure if I will find out. Dammit.

Thoughts on it all? Looking for opinions!