We have friends selling a ’99 black S80 Volvo. It’s a beautiful, beautiful car.
We have an ’00 Minivan Of Doom (per my kids) that, after all the money we have sunk into it, ungratefully blew through most of its transmission and an axle not to mention the crack that is now all the way across the bottom of the windshield and the side door that, the third time the kids crunched it in while they were learning to drive, we gave up on it. T’ain’t pretty. I have babied it, I have kept that transmission going for over four years since it first started grumbling but its time has come.
The mileage was high on the Volvo (183k, yow) but the car “is in good shape, as far as I know,” said the owner, showing us a tall stack of yellow mechanic’s reports from over the years. And his price was less than the estimate on my van.
So I took it to my mechanic, who was dubious over those miles and for $47.50 gave it a good checking out for me.
Always take it to a mechanic.
Turns out the estimate on their car was within a few hundred of their asking price and the minivan suddenly doesn’t look so bad; I finally asked what my windshield would cost–$225?! Is that all? Why didn’t I do that long ago? and I gave our friends their car back. Reluctantly.
So for $47.50, I came away grateful for what I have and my friends have the favor done them of knowing exactly what they’re dealing with and my mechanic had a little extra pocket change for the day. Everybody wins.
And now I will still have a car after all that is big enough to haul all the stuff out of here that’s going to go away after the Great Closet Crash of Saturday’s flooding.
But I admit to a mixture of keen disappointment with that sampling of gratitude. It was not new (well, the detailing was) but that wood-burled heated-leather-seat side-impact-airbags sunroofed-but-my-tall-Richard-could-still-fit-in (that was a first) Volvo, it was a beautiful, beautiful car.
“And I’m not talking about the nonmechanical things, like the sunroof that won’t open,” said my mechanic.
“I have lupus–I’m not opening the sunroof,” I countered.
But it would be cool to know I could if I wanted.
“Are you disappointed?” I asked my sweetheart.
“Yeah,” he admitted. He liked that Volvo too.