Car

One of the main events from the last week was that I finally bought a car. It was something that I needed to do, but that I really didn't want to do. I ended up going through a dealership mostly because it was easier (although obviously it costs a bit more). I've never bought a car before, but I've heard plenty of horror stories about used car dealerships. I was pleasantly surprised by the way they treated me. They really seemed interested in making it a good experience for me, not just selling me something quick and getting me off of the lot. Some of the things that come to mind:

• They told me exactly what I would have to pay on top of the price of the car (just sales tax and California licensing fees), and they actually meant it. I've heard plenty of stories about extra "dealership" fees and there was none of that for me.
• They paid to put insurance on the car for the first 21 days so that I could drive it home without having to figure out insurance immediately.
• Since I drove a car down, I had the problem of needing to get two cars back up. At no cost, they had one of their men come pick me up and bring me back down to the dealership (about 45 miles away) to pick up the second car. They didn't have to do that, I had already bought the car.

So anyway, the car itself is a 2002 Saturn SL. It is a fairly simple car, but I wasn't looking for anything fancy, just something reliable and efficient. It has a reliability record higher than Corollas and Civics for that year. The specs claim it gets 40 MPG on the freeway. I've been keeping track of my mileage, and thus far I've been getting a bit over 37 MPG. Most of that was on the freeway, but in did contain a fair amount of stop-go LA traffic. Overall I'm fairly happy with my car buying experience. More than that, I'm just glad that I don't need to worry about it anymore.