Just made an appointment to test drive a Fiat 500 tomorrow afternoon after Office Job.  They apparently have three models: Pop, Sport, and Lounge ($15,500, $17,500, and $19,500 respectively).  The Pop is what I’m looking at because it’s cheaper, but they only have one automatic transmission Pop model at the location I’m doing my test drive.  I might have to wait around, driving Dad’s old Exploder until more arrive.  The guy said they sold three yesterday, “Boom!  Gone!” but translated from car salesman speak, I’m guessing that means four test drives and one sale.

WAAAAAANT

If this Fiat doesn’t work out… I’m going to regret selling my Pontiac.  It would have been so much more economical to keep it that I’m still panicking about selling it.  But when I mentioned that to my friends last night, they all sang out at the same time, “Nope!  That car always had problems, you made a good choice!”  Maybe they were right.

Cost of Pontiac: $9k

Cost of Pontiac with upkeep: probably around $11k

Sold for $2,200

So I end up $8,800 in the hole.  I had it for three years.  That’s about three thousand dollars a year.  Yikes.  Not a very good investment.  I should have hung onto it.

BUT NO! I found the front right headlamp had fallen out of it’s place, and was dangling from it’s wires over the front fender once, for no reason!  And every time it rained the light would go out and I would have to take it to the shop to get replaced!  And Dad had to manually install a switch to turn off the security feature that caused it to stop recognizing my key, and occasionally not start!  And the snap-crackle-popping noises coming out of the rear speaker were so bad, I had stopped listening to music at all!  And only half of the speakers worked!  And every time I looked at the dented fender, it made me feel bad about myself for being a bad driver while sick!  And the fuel pump broke within the first year just like my first Pontiac (not cheap), but this time I was on the freeway… in the fast lane… on my way to Medieval Times for a friend’s birthday party, which I ended up missing RAAAAAGH I’m still angry/sad about it!  And the doors were really heavy because the coupe was too long, and I was never able to find the the rear center seat belt, and the middle seat was rock hard anyway, and there was a small crack on the windshield from a tiny pebble hitting it on freeway on the way back from Pomona, and it was such a dark green that it was hard to see in the dark and was unsafe and was sweltering hot in the summer, and the AC wasn’t great, and neither was the heater, and the front right blinker hasn’t worked in forever, and Dad had to duct tape part of the door bumper on (before I took it to the shop and they forcibly screwed it back on), and the volume control on the stereo didn’t always work, and when Carmax sold it to me and I had my mechanic have a look at it, he pointed out (among several other problems) one part under the hood that was being held on with twine!  The brakes sucked (they made a horrible, deep whining sound when I had jam down on them), the pickup sucked (there was a full 1-2 second delay from when I hit the gas, and the car would speed up).  And it was about to hit 100k miles, which means its value would have plummeted if I hadn’t sold it when I did (it was at 99,964).

Things I liked about my dark green Pontiac Grand Am GT:

-red light-up display

-thick steering wheel

-enormous trunk space

-can’t think of anything else.

UPDATE: March 15, 8:56pm

Did the test drive.  Loved it.  The ride is pretty smooth, there’s plenty of room for two people with some small dogs in the back seat, and groceries in the boot.  Look at that.  I’m calling it a boot.  Because it looks like it was snatched off the very streets of London.  It looks so much like one of those black cabs they have, it’s uncanny.  Larger on the outside that I thought, which I like (safer).  Cramped for head and legroom for anyone taller than me in the back, but fine in the front, so I don’t care.  Loads of standard features that are actually attractive.  USB hookup, remote lock, etc.  Good shit.