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| My new peach! |
My mom bought her 4Runner back from me and I began searching for a new car. I wanted either an 03-07 Honda Accord coupe, Nissan Altima coupe, or an Infiniti G35/G37 coupe. I had a few items on my wish list, including:
-Exterior Color: Red
-Interior Color: Beige (basically anything light. It gets too hot in Georgia for black seats. I've had them and it's no fun in July!)
-Stick shift
I figured my criteria wasn't too crazy, but I was surprised at how hard it was to find an Accord, Altima, or Infiniti that matched those 3 items. If I found one with a manual transmission, it was a silver car with black seats. If I found a red one with a tan interior, it was an automatic transmission. After thinking maybe I would have to give up my red car dream and think about including other colors, I stumbled across a beauty of a car that had all of the items on my wish list and then some! It was an '04 Honda Accord coupe, red with tan interior, with a stick shift. The added bonuses were plentiful; a sunroof, in-dash 6 disc CD player, heated leather seats, side curtain airbags, navigation, and this little peach only had 60K miles on it! For a 2004 car, that's really amazing. The CarFax came back clean and showed that the car had only had 1 owner and was from Sarasota, FL. I was a little (okay, a lot) nervous about test driving it because it had been 6 years since I'd owned a stick shift car and I was afraid I'd forget how to work it and we'd wind up stalled out like ass clowns in the middle of the Big Chicken intersection.
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| Dump the clutch, motherclucker! |
I set up an appointment and Jason and I headed up to Marietta to test drive it last Tuesday. The car was lovely, the experience was...entertaining. The salesman gave us the keys to test drive it without him which was cool. As soon as we turn out onto the 5 lane road, we notice the gas light's on. So I drove us around a little loop of streets and was so happy that I didn't forget how to drive a stick or have an embarrassing stall. Jason pointed out a gas station and offered to put some gas in it to continue the test drive. So as Jason's pumped the gas, I turn off the engine but leave the car on so I can fiddle with the radio and sunroof and check things out. Jason hops back in and I turn the key and - click click click click. The car won't start. The radio and interior lights flicker off. The battery is dead. This just keeps getting better! So we have to call the dealership and they have to page the salesman. I finally get to him and he tells me he's sending one of the guys to come jump the car. So...15 minutes later (we were literally 2 minutes away from the dealership), there's a bunch of people hanging out at the gas station and one lady continues to enthusiastically shout that she's "gonna kill his ass". I started getting a tad uncomfs seeing as how we were trapped in a car with a dead battery and it sounded like a homicide was mere moments away from unfolding. I called the salesman again and he's shocked that the guy he sent isn't there yet but assures me the guy is on the way. Maybe he stopped off for some Jujyfruits first? He finally rolls up and commences to hook up the jumper box; he tries to crank the car and it won't start. He pulls out his phone and mutters that he'd brought the "bad box" instead of the one that works. My question is, why don't they go ahead and get rid of the jumper box that doesn't work, but hey, what do I know? So the guy calls and gets our salesman to bring the working jumper box; he shows up and the guy is able to get the car cranked right away. The thing that irritated me was the salesman acted defeated and disgruntled when he arrived, as if we'd already made up our minds that we weren't going to buy the car. I mean, they've had the car sitting on their lot for a few months and it's been cold. It wasn't a huge deal to me that the battery was dead, but the salesman showed up acting like we were angry and were going to peel out of their lot on 2 wheels, never to be seen again. I drove the car back to the lot and, based on the way we were treated, we did return the keys and hit the road. We ate Popeyes spicy chicken for dinner while I searched the internet for a comparable vehicle I could buy elsewhere. After about 2 hours, it became clear that I wasn't going to find one. Not with all of these bells and whistles with this low mileage for it's age. I decided that I wanted that car. And then I couldn't stop thinking about it! I barely slept!
This car is extra special to me because I had an 03 Accord coupe back in 2006. It was red with a tan cloth interior; it had an automatic transmission, but it was a beaut and I loved it. Sadly, it was stolen, involved in 2 hit and runs, and totaled. When I went to the tow yard to see if any of my stuff was still inside, I saw that it wasn't just totaled from the crash damage, but the car's interior was absolutely destroyed. Every surface had been burned with cigarettes and blunts, the sunroof, center console, and CD player had been broken (for fun?), and the car was littered with drug baggies, cigarettes and roach butts. It truly broke my heart. It still makes my stomach drop to remember seeing it at like that the tow yard.
Finding this beautiful car was amazing; it's like getting another shot at having a red Accord coupe like the one I had stolen from me 7 years ago!
Beutiful set of wheels! So happy you found what you wanted and are happy with this purchase. Impressed you can drive a stick shift! Wow!
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