Consensus is I haven't gone barking mad, but still...

[unixronin]

As I've previously alluded to, three major items are still on my list to get fully settled in.

1. I need to get rid of this rental and get set up with long-term, non-rented transport, preferably with all-weather and cargo-hauling capability;
2. I need to get net at the apartment;
3. I need to get a proper bed and some good pillows.

The third is somewhat less than urgent, given I have a futon to sleep on (though the pillows would help me sleep better; I hardly slept last night).  The second, I'm thinking Speakeasy OneLink DSL; I'm pretty sure it'll actually be cheaper than getting POTS service on my line and ordering DSL through SBC, I'll get a better data rate, they'll give me a /30, and it includes nationwide 56k dialup, so we'll be able to ditch the Earthlink dialup in Greenville and use the Speakeasy 56k until cymrullewes and the girls move out here.  What's more, it's only $19.95 for the first two months,and ditching Earthlink will save us $22 a month, so for the first two months we'll actually come out $2 ahead.

Yesterday afternoon I drove up to Dublin to look at a car to take care of #1.  I went up there planning to basically look at it as price research, not intending to buy.  (My parents are making me an interest-free car loan to avoid both auto-loan interest and potential credit-rating issues.)  The car I went to look at was a silver '98 Camaro Z28 with 57K miles for $9K -- low mileage for its age, and low price for the low mileage (average 9K miles per year).

Turned out the reason the price was so low for the mileage it was thrashed.  Someone had done a fairly incompetent job of trying to turn it into a racecar.  There were steel rails badly welded into the trunk with 1/4-20 bolts through them that I can only assume had a racing fuel cell hung on them, there was no back seat, various accessories didn't work, there were extra switches that didn't do anything, disconnected wires hanging off all over the place, the air cleaner was held closed with duct tape, there was a bracket for a regular household fire extinguisher bolted right through the passenger-side airbag ... I mean, it was a mess.  No matter how strong the engine sounded once we eventually got it to fire up, I wouldn't have touched it with a ten-foot pole except to build a racer (and probably not even then, Chaos only knows what else the previous owner had fucked with).  The salesdude (who was a website designer before the tech crash, btw) suggested they had a '99 Firebird at the same $9K price that I might want to look at, and while it was higher mileage (74K), it was in much better shape.  It too had a few problems, though, a couple of which would probably have been expensive to fix (rear hatch pulldown inoperative, driver's power window inoperative, for example).

So then, salesdude asks, "Are you interested in anything else besides a Camaro?  What's your price range?  If you can go up a little, I have a car I think you'll like."  And for $11K, he proceeds to show me a silver, immaculate, obviously meticulously-maintained, almost showroom-perfect .... '98 Mercedes C230. 

It's highish mileage (around 89K, about 15K per year), but it is just totally cherry.  I test-drove it, and it was great -- a little more body roll than I really prefer, but very sure-footed, agile, very tight turning circle (by comparison, the Sebring I'm renting seems to have a turning circle of about half a block), and stops like it just hooked the three wire.  EPA says 30mpg highway, too.  This was the point at which I called up my parents for a sanity check to ask whether I'd gone completely raving, barking mad.  I have never before in my life so much as considered buying a Mercedes-Benz.  I'd always figured anything in that class was absurdly far out of my price range.  And here I am, I've been employed three weeks and I'm looking at a Mercedes.  [gibber, chase own tail, gibber some more]

So the upshot is, my parents are overnighting me a cashier's check, and tomorrow I get to go up to Dublin and pick up my new-to-me [gibber, gibber] Mercedes [gibber] ....

Comments

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's pretty nice.

That Camaro sound like something that I would have bought. ;)

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I might have considered it, as a project-car toy, if I had the time, the disposable income, and the facilities to work on it. Racer-boy pretty evidently didn't know what the fuck he was doing, though, so it might have been more headache than it was worth even then.

But yeah, if you undid a bunch of the stuff he'd fucked up and redid it RIGHT ... relocate the battery to the trunk, rip out those rails (they looked like hardware-store shelf rails), fix all the screwed-up wiring, put in a K&N intake system....

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Dayum. Niiiiiiiiice. And it's a Benz, not a Beemer, so it doesn't come with the mandatory assholier-than-thou course (although I hear tell you don't have to take it if the car is out of warranty)...

Consider it karma.... and I hope like hell life continues to go this direction for you. Gods knows you deserve it, after the last six years...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Mandatory course...? :)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, don't you know, all new Beemers come with a mandatory assholier-than-thou course. Topics include cutting people off in traffic, sharking for parking spaces, refraining from the use of the dimmer switch, the blinker switch, and general courtesy. It's pass-fail; fail and you can't have the Beemer.

If, on the other hand, the Beemer is out of warranty, the course is optional, and is normally eschewed by folks who are buying the vehicle because it drives well (as most German machinery does) and who could give a flying fornication about being an asshat.

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

I'm told that you have to pass the asshole test to buy a Lexus. Didn't know about the Beemer....

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Never noticed it in Lexi in particular... must be a wussy-ass test.

[rbos.livejournal.com]

Nice, that sounds like quality for an amazing price. I would go for that purchase in a second; it costs a bit more but you get a whole lot more value.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Picking up a C230, especially one that nice, for $11K just about blew my mind.

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

Heh, well... If you end up in the market for a family hauler, we're looking to sell our Minivan pretty soon... 2001 Mazda MPV, about 25k miles. Really good for the family duties. Also has the tow package and a class 2 hitch. Prolly gonna ask about 14k; bluebook is between 14-15k, and it's in pretty good condition. Been sitting in my grandfathers garage since we got here, but I think residency may be sorted by next month or so, therefore it's time to loose the ol' girl. Too bad, I really like that car.

Ironic really. We bought the dumb thing new, thinking that we wouldn't have to get into car payments for a good 7-10 years. Then before we'd even paid it off we move down here. Best laid plans of mice and men. Bugger.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Truth to tell is, neither one of us really does minivans. If we need something with more hauling capacity than the Intrepid, we'll probably look at something like a Dodge Durango or a Jeep Cherokee. (cymrullewes likes the Cherokee, but I'd probably lean more towards the Durango.) The new Dodge Magnum wagon is kinda nice, but rear and rear-quarter visibility from it is appalling, and despite that very cool rear hatch, it actually doesn't really have that much more cargo capacity than the Intrepid. (What it can do, of course, is fold the back seat and swallow up much larger objects than would ever fit into the Intrepid. But a Durango will swallow much more again.)

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Having test driven one, I can tell you, the Hemi Magnum goes like stink.

Salesdrone made the mistake of telling me to "just punch it". So I turned off the traction control, set it for semi-auto shifting, and punched it.

Eventually we got his fingers pried out of the armrest. :)

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

-grin-

I'm looking forward with interest to the introduction of the officially-2006-model Hemi Charger R/T. That oughta be a fun car.

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

Fair enough... We went for the minivan 'cause we got a lot more for our money; the Durango and such had too rich of a price tag for our blood...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

True enough. The main thing with a minivan for me is, it has more people-hauling capacity than we currently need, but less people-plus-cargo-hauling capacity than I want from a vehicle that size, and on top of that I hate the way they drive.

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

I was pretty happy with ours on both counts... It handled better than most SUVs, and the cargo space was awesome; the back bench seat folds down flat into the floor, and the middle 2 bucket seats pop out with the click of a lever, leaving a huge space between the front buckets and the rear hatch. I had all kinds of wacky stuff loaded in there over the years, including a queen size mattress/box spring set. Pulled numerous trips between LA and SF, generally at 80-100mph, and was plenty happy with performance. Even pulled a wee trailer on one run, with a VW 2liter engine in it, and was hitting 100 on some of the stretches. I'm not a huge fan of the look/style/etc of minivans, but I'd certainly consider an MPV again the next time we're in the market. It wasn't flash, but damn it was a useful and practical vehicle. I really wish we could import it without so much hassle, 'cause I'd love to keep it. But getting the controls shifted from left to right would cost a bloody fortune, on top of the cargo costs, so it's just not worth it. Bugger. They do sell 'em down here, so we may yet end up with another one. But I think Sam's more keen on some sort of zippy sporty convertibley car.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I've driven Jasa's minivan a few times and eh, it's okay but it really isn't anything that I'd like to drive often or even seldom.

So... my dear Darling, why the Durango over the Jeep Cherokee? I like the Cherokee's styling plus Mrs Overton had one for years and she would haul around Neal and Russ and all of their stuff (saxophone, soccer gear, baseball gear and the like) so I know it'll last.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Basically because the current Durango is, as far as I know, a more capable and capacious vehicle than the current Cherokee, and the older Cherokee that I think you're thinking of is not going to have a lot of the things like antilock brakes, LATCH anchors and tethers, etc.

[shadowcat48li.livejournal.com]

sweet car
now of course I have to suggest testing out the cars stereo with some Janice Joplin first

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Don't have any Janis Joplin, sorry. And I have to admit she really doesn't do much for me. (Which is why I don't have any.)

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

It matches my car.... silver paint and moon roof....

LATCH? Rear tethers?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Neither of the above, I'm afraid. The upper rear tethers basically aren't going to be in anything before 2000, the lower LATCH anchors aren't going to be in anything before 2004, and I don't know if imports have them anyway.

That said, the LATCH anchors can probably be retrofitted as I did in the Intrepid, and there are rear headrests to which the upper tethers could be attached.

cars

[felinecanine.livejournal.com]

I have never before in my life so much as considered buying a Mercedes-Benz. I'd always figured anything in that class was absurdly far out of my price range. And here I am, I've been employed three weeks and I'm looking at a Mercedes.

Now you sound like one of those Mercedes commercials that they've been airing over the past few years touting the affordability of their cars.

By the way, have you considered the Honda Accord? (*ducks*)

Re: cars

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I didn't need to. It's been done for me. At great length. :)

(Seriously, there's numerous things about most Japanese cars I've driven that bug me, including that they tend to do things with control placement that I find weirdly counter-intuitive.)

[greyman.livejournal.com]

OK, I now officially hate you. With sprinkles on top.

But, I reserve the satisfaction over the reaming you'll get when you take it in for work the first time. Or buy parts if you do your own work.

My stepfather likes used Mercedes, and has had one or another for years. I get dizzy when I catch sight of his repair/maintenance bills. Of course I'm the guy who just sunk $1800 in repairs into a '93 Chevy Blazer, and about half that into an '86 Saab 900 for repairs.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're not the first person who's muttered darkly about maintenance costs. As good condition as it's in, I'm hoping it's not going to need anything in the short term. Time will tell, I guess.