today's rant: new car?

I am probably going to need to buy a bigger car before the end of the year.  Whoopie.  I just got done paying off my current car last year, and now I may need another one.  We’re planning on adopting two siblings, so that means my sedan isn’t big enough for everyone.  The law requires that I have two child safety seats for my two current kids because they are not big or heavy enough to be “safe” in the car’s defacto seatbelts.  This was not a problem when I was a kid.  I dealt with my seatbelt digging into my neck with no problem whatsoever.  Besides, the mark looks like someone tried to cut my throat and I survived.  Bonus points for me looking like a badass.

The point is that with the child safety seats currently in my sedan, there is no room for 2 teenagers in my car, not even if one of them sits in the front passenger seat.  The only option is to have a car with a third row.  While I like the prospect of getting something with more room, satellite radio, and a push-button start because my lazy wrist isn’t up to turning a key, my wife already has a minivan.  There’s the third row right there.  Let’s just use that car.  Jeez, if only that were the case.  Right now, I’m the one dropping the little kids off at school or daycare and picking them up.  If I have to do that with 2 more kids, I certainly can’t put one or two of them in trunk, now can I?

One apprehension of giving up my sedan is that it is my friend.  We’ve been through a lot together.  I’ve slammed on the breaks, sped off in it, accelerated, avoided car crashes, gotten into car crashes… I know my car’s limits.  For example, take Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon.  The Falcon was upgraded and modified and if something falls apart or vibrates a certain way, he knows what’s wrong and he knows for hard he can push his ship.  So if I can pretend to be Harrison Ford, I’m going to do it for as long as I damn well can.

For shiggles (shits + giggles), I have been looking at potential midsize SUVs to replace my car.  I’m not in a position to buy one right now, but when the time is right, I want to know what to expect.  I don’t want to keep my sedan if I need a bigger car.  That’s car insurance and maintenance I don’t want to pay for, even if any of the teenagers will be old enough to learn how to drive some years down the road.  So I’m either going to trade my car in or sell it.  Unfortunately, since some bitch ran a red light and T-boned me last fall, the resale value of my car is down.  For a trade-in, I’d probably get $5k-$6k; selling it by myself, maybe $7k-$8k.  That’s a damn shame because I’ve been keeping this car in good working order for as long as I’ve had it.  It’s way less than what my previous car was worth when it was totaled.

Looking at potential makes, I am going to choose an Asian manufacturer.  Sorry, but I’ve been told Ford stands for “Fix Or Repair Daily”.  I don’t need that crap.  I need something with quality built in, and as a person who works in quality control, history and reputation speak volumes.  My current sedan has 120,000 mi on it over 4 years with no problems for the most part.  I’d push the car to 200,000 if I could.  The only complaint I have is that the car battery needed to be replaced recently.  I thought that shit was supposed to last longer! I want to see what happens to the old car batteries.  I want to know how they dispose of them.  If I had the opportunity, I’d do some experiments.  Let’s see what happens when we crack open a battery while it is on top of some Styrofoam.  What happens when you use a guillotine?  How far can you lug one of those things with catapult?

I do not know the thought processes of a 4 year old boy who suddenly breaks down and throws a temper tantrum for a reason as simple as “we have to go to daycare, so you don’t have time to watch television”, but I will try to contextualize it in a way that adults would be able to comprehend.  The way he reacted is as if I dumped a bucket of ice water on him to wake him up and made him watch while I murdered Cat Boy, skull-fucked his eye-socket, and ate all the ice cream in the house while doing so.  IF I had done all of those things, then I would be able to understand why he was screaming as loudly as he was.