Car Talk

No car shopping for me this week. Today's the only day it really would have been convenient to do it, and today is being devoted to other matters, starting with getting my swamp cooler serviced. Maybe next week? Or the week after? Bah. It's turning out to be remarkably hard to schedule stuff this month. Especially stuff I kind of want to put off.

I have, however, done some more research, and my new top choice, pending hands-on evaluation, is the Honda Fit, which has been described to me as "TARDIS-like" in its interior vs. exterior dimensions, and which has even better reviews than the Toyota Matrix. And it's a bit cheaper. The only advantage I can see to the Matrix, or at least the only advantage I care about, is that it's available with a bigger engine for a little more acceleration, which the Fit isn't. And when I'm merging, I like to be able to merge. Still, unless Consumer Reports and friends have misled me greatly, I think the Fit will be at least adequate on that score. No doubt a test drive will tell.

Mostly now I'm wondering about the logistics of this whole thing. I'm going to have to drive to Albuquerque to go car shopping, which means I'm going to have two vehicles on my hands if and when I actually buy one. Dragging somebody else along to visit car lots with me seems unlikely to be fun for either of us, if I could even find someone willing to volunteer, plus I'll probably be going on a weekday when normal people are working. And I'm dubious whether anybody is going to want my leaky, rough-starting, hail-damaged '99 Neon as a trade-in, even if it does have ridiculously low mileage. Ah, well. If the condition of me spending something like twenty thousand dollars on a new car is leaving my old one in their parking lot until I can find someone to give me a ride up to retrieve it, are they going to tell me no?