Used Car Corner: Is Finding The Perfect Car Worth Your While?
So I headed back to the East Coast for a wedding this past weekend, which gave me a chance to reacquaint myself with my old 1995 Acura Integra GSR. My parents are driving it now, and with 14 calendar years and 108,000 miles on the clock, it couldn't be running more smoothly. This, folks, is a special car, a sublime marriage of Civic reliability and M-Division enthusiasm -- but driving it also reminded me of the two months I spent scouring the online classifieds before I found this thing back in the summer of 2006. Which brings me to the subject of this column: whether it's worth the considerable effort that may be required to find that unblemished gem of your dreams.
The answer depends, I think, on how particular you are about your cars. For a crazed car nut who would perform unspeakable acts for an 8,000-rpm redline and who may also be prone to buyer's remorse -- not that I know anyone like that -- it probably does make sense to wait till the perfect specimen comes along, because the marginal benefit will be reinforced with every twist of the key. But for the average shopper, it makes more sense to save your time and settle, or at least to be prepared to do so. Cars are more reliable than ever these days, so if you're looking at a late-model used car, chances are it'll provide years of loyal service, even if everything about it isn't just so.
In any case, the automotive moral of my weekend was this: the perfect used car is almost always out there, but finding it is almost always a challenge. Unless, of course, you can get your kid to do it for you.
Josh Sadlier, Associate Editor
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- Josh Sadlier October 15, 2009, 11:00 AM
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- Used Car Corner, Used Cars
it's never a perfect car unless you get it at the perfect price.
ahhh! there's the rub...