Last night The Boyf and I went to test-drive a little Saturn sedan. It was cute enough and it had some fun features - 5-speed, which we both prefer, a sunroof, etc. - but it just wasn’t what I was looking for (a cascade of car issues has us both looking for new cars while sharing mine). On our way across the lot to the car we had both spotted a used Prius with a big SOLD sign on the dash and shared some quiet lamentations. After the test drive, on the way back into the dealership to consider test-driving a little Solara coupe we’d also seen, The Boyf took a closer look at the Prius and then called me back to where he was.

“Is today the 28th?” he asked, then he looked at his phone. “Is it after 7pm?” I confirmed both of these were the case. “This car went back on sale nineteen minutes ago.”

It turned out that the car was being held for a potential transfer to another dealership but there was a timer on that hold and the timer ran out at 7pm last night. So, The Boyf and I had some thinkin’ to do.

Long story short, we didn’t buy it. The demand for the Prius is so high that used ones - even used ones for which the warranty on the hybrid components is about five seconds from running out and for which nothing else is under warranty at all - cost a pittance less than brand new ones. I couldn’t justify spending that much money for a car that might be really, really expensive to fix when I’ve already turned my nose up at a very reasonably priced very nice mid-’90s sedan from another company on the same grounds.

During the two hours it took us to hash out whether this would or would not be a good idea, though, I did the following:

  • asked to borrow the salesman’s computer and in moments got past their feeble measures designed to keep people from accessing the internet so that I could read some reviews, which was just fun
  • called mrh (a buddy from Unfogged) to chat with him about his Prius; he was unbelievably nice about being called out of the blue
  • used my phone and The Boyf’s phone to hit different reviews sites at the same time and get estimated repair costs for various things

In the end I decided that with tremendous fiscal restraint I could save up enough to get a much smaller loan on a new one in six or eight months and would much rather my first hybrid have all the warranty in the world on it. So, we disappointed a friendly car salesman but life went on; while he was trying to write up our interest in the car he hit a stumbling block of his own in that someone in South Carolina was trying to buy it at the same time. Somebody’s going to buy that car today, I’m sure. He’ll make his sale.

This whole act of car shopping, I note, has been an act of setting goals and then immediately trashing them. My three big requirements were that any car I got had to be a stick (the Prius is automatic-only), had to have a sunroof (no sunroof!) and had to be used because, as I am fond of pointing out, any car loses a tremendous amount of value the moment the first owner signs the paperwork. So, did I just set a new goal to trash? Or did I just set a better goal to which I would rather aspire?

I have commented in the past - on Unfogged, no less, so that I apologized twice to mrh for this when discussing the Prius with him - that I think the Prius is an awesome car but not an attractive one. It is a car that looks a bit like a hamster, to be honest; my preference is not just for muscle cars but for cars that appear to be trapped for all time in the act of flexing. I said all of that before driving one. Driving one - just for five miles - completely changed my opinion of them. They aren’t just extremely comfortable or extremely quiet - they are, and at one point I murmured to The Boyf as we practically subvocalized our running commentary with the salesman sitting quietly in the back seat, “When was the last time we had a conversation this quiet in either of our cars?” - and they aren’t just loaded with features - the “base” model is priced lower because it lacks cruise control and heated fucking mirrors - they are also extremely neat. The gear shift is completely different from any other in a way that’s hard to describe. The thing is practically made of extra glove compartments. For a hatchback there’s pretty great visibility and the engine has remarkable pep for being so tiny. It took off at a faster trot than my Cherokee (yes, I am one of those people) and I passed someone assholishly to make sure it could be driven in the fashion I acknowledge that I prefer to drive.

The Boyf was reading a review as we sat in the sales guy’s office, later, and said, “Oh, it’s recommended that a Prius be driven for thirty continuous minutes at least once a week to make sure the batteries get completely topped off. So I guess we’re going to have to go for long, quiet drives in the country without using much gas.”

Oh darn.

I think I’m going to go transfer more into the Prius fund.