the great car chase

Oh my gosh, am I glad to be done with the car search. I hope that by writing that previous sentence I did not jinx myself.
Like the guy in the song "Bitchin Camero" by the Dead Milkmen; 'I have a car now'. It wasn't easy, in fact it was an epic journey, often a tragic comedy, but with a very happy ending.
Throughout my more discouraging moments people always threw out the typical bits that are supposed to make you feel better like "well it wasn't meant to be" or " maybe it happened for a reason". The reason was I had shitty luck. Until I ended up with the car that must have been the real reason, the one that was meant to be. The car my mechanic described as the best car ever built.
It began a year ago when I decided that I needed to sell the Burning Van. I had had it for 6 years, lived in for three, and had used it to voice my opinion about the political state of this country post 9/11. The changing wind in American politics plus the fact that it barely ran had me finally ready to move on. I sold it in October (that is another story). Since then we have been talking about getting a new car and selling Anke's VW bus. The bus is beloved and not easy to sell. This stalled the process. I finally began shopping for cars before Anke had officially decided to actually sell the bus. The first car I was interested in got me in trouble since Anke had not officially decided it was time.
Then Anke finally was sort of at peace with selling the bus so we started the search for real. Craigslist is a great website for buying used stuff (and getting it free). An on line community bulletin board. This is where I would spend all my spare time searching for a car.
When we bought our previous car I wanted a diesel to run on veggie oil/biodiesel. We needed a station wagon for our family car to fit surfboards, for sleeping, etc. It was nearly impossible to find one. People were flying to Texas and Washington to buy diesels and driving them back to Marin. So we gave up on that idea and bought a mini-mini van, a '96 Isuzu Oasis (actually a honda Odyssy). We love it.
This time I had my sights set on a Toyota or Honda. Originally I was only looking for wagons. We figured we would sell the Bus for about $3000 if we were lucky so I was looking for a car with around 100k miles. Many in my price range had more like 200K. Of course these cars are in high demand and if you aren't the first to see the good ones they are gone. Plus most are located in San Jose or some other location 1 or 2 hours away.
During the search there were so many failed attempts at purchasing a car. The problem was made worse by the fact that as I got seriously into the search the bus died which meant we needed a car ASAP and we had a lot less money with which to purchase one.
Among the failed attempts:
There was the time I dragged my buddy Jessie, who is a mechanic, out to the delta, about 1 1/2 hours away to check out a honda with low miles. We met the guy selling it at the gas station where he worked and where all his hommies seemed to hang out. The car was filthy (underwear in the trunk) and dented but ran strong. While Jessie and I test drove it he looked in the glove compartment. First paper he pulled out read in large bold letters "domestic violence". The next was a receipt for one night at Motel 6.
On the phone I had asked the dude numerous times if he had all the paper work. I did not want to drive all the way there if he did not. He assured me he did.
Back at the station as people carried stereo equipment from car to car the seller explained to us the the car was not registered in his name and that he would mail us the title. He said it was just like buying a car from a dealer, only difference we were at a sketchy gas station, in the hood, at night.
We left without the car.

There was the '82 toyota corolla station wagon with only 80K miles - grandpa's car. We checked it out near San Jose and as soon as we saw I thought it was cute and Anke said "no way" . It was too old. Then she saw rust and there was no way. She was not gonna sell her bus to buy this piece of junk. I was crushed and pissed. I didn't even get to test drive it. She promised to find me a nice car, I vowed to stop looking. I was actually bummed and a little pissed all day and every time the car search went wrong after that I remembered that car.

Another car was an '85 nissan station wagon. Well taken car of, 70K miles. But still too old for Anke.

As I abandoned the station wagon requirement gas mileage took over as main factor in my search. I settled on Honda for gas mileage, reliability, and looks (over toyota). The civic was what I had my eye on. Four door sedan or two door hatchback.

The next time I brought Jessie 1 1/2 hours away to see a car we left without even test driving it. The guy on the phone said there was nothing wrong with it but when we arrived he listed the things wrong, broken windshield, axle, every panel was dented, the seats were the worst I had ever seen, etc. I took a half day off work for that one.

Then it was finally over, I had finally found the perfect car. A two door 91 civic hatchback. Owned by a brasilian girl who was returning to brasil. Sad to sell her cute little car. Well maintained. She met me two blocks from my work to show me the car. It was perfect, mint condition. No Jessie to check it out and she said she did not have time until Friday (it was tuesday) to meet to sell it. I agreed to buy it on Friday and planned to have Jessie go with me to check it. That night I was so relieved to be done and to be buying a car from someone I could trust. I emailed her those thoughts and she replied that some girl came to her school and payed her cash for it so she sold it. I had even had the cash with me when I saw it that afternoon. I was crushed.

Back to craigslist. There were others of course. Most sold before I got to them. Finally I got to one all the way in San Jose. Same car that I missed from the brasilian girl, just more beat up. 104K miles honda civic, the guy selling it seemed trustworthy to me, I was sick of shopping for a car, it was my rebound car after the brasilian heartbreak, so I bought it. Drove it home. Noah fell in love with the little red sports car. "Now we can catch up with the trash throwers." was all he could talk about (another story). I registered it, took it to Sam, our mechanic, and OOPS! Everything was wrong with it. Sam was certain it had twice the number of miles. $2000 at least to get it to be worth the $1400 I paid for it.
I called Ed and told him I was bringing it back. He said "of course". He took it back and was very nice acting surprised. I thought I could trust him and I guess I could since he gave me my money back. Either he didn't know or he just was too chicken to stick me with it once I found out.
Sam said he would find us a car. The very next day he was all excited about a car he found. He had a good feeling about this one. It was the best car ever made in his opinion. '83 mercedes 240 D. Known as the best Mercedes ever built, they spared no expense, using the finest metals, leather, and German engineering. Runs on biodiesel.
This particular one was taken care of very well, pretty much mint condition, re painted, rare hand polished chrome wheels. It is the fancy model with power everything, a huge sunroof, it even has air conditioning. It has a manual transmission which is rare for the fancy model.
The guy selling it was funny and nice, older guy, didn't really care how much he sold the car for, didn't know about bio-diesel and the high demand for such a car. Sam went with me to check it out. We were the first to check it out. It was actually about ten minutes away from Ed's house so I returned the hoopty honda before checking out the Benz.
I was so in the mode of a sporty honda that I did not fully appreciate the car I was about to own. But the price was half of what I knew I could turn around and sell it for the next day. Sam was gonna buy it and sell it if I did not.
We took it to Sam's shop, he took the thing apart head to toe and fine tuned the thing. He has the same car and knows all the tricks. He noticed a lot of expensive work done on the car recently. He kept saying "oh, this is good!" as he examined the car.
When I bought it I thought, "well, I can drive it for a year and if I am not happy with it sell it and get something else". After four days of driving it I cannot imagine ever selling it. It is so nice it is ridiculous. It feels like a great car and every time I drive it I like it more. In fact I am having issues with the fact that I like it so much. For me I was always proud of having a car that I did not worry about. If it got scratched, oh well, it is only a car. People being in love with their cars, well that is a bit disturbing. But this thing, although it is only a car, it is an awfully nice one! Plus I was actually hoping to get a car that I could paint into an art car. But painting on this would be like painting over the Mona Lisa. Not gonna happen.
Of course there are also issues with biodiesel once you get to the level of destroying forest of taking over farm land in order to grow feul. Plus growing things like corn for fuel will only raise the price of important food crops and cause massive suffering of very poor people.
The place for biodiesel is certainly as a way to burn oil that is gonna be wasted anyway, factory bi-product or used veggie oil from restaurants. Plus biodiesel does not create the carcinogens that regular petroleum gas does. As a grass roots solution for those of us who want to improve our environmental impact biodiesel is certainly a great option. Until we can all drive solar powered vehicles.
So for now I am rolling in the Benzo, smelling like Micky D's.