When Your Son Needs New Wheels …

When my son wanted to buy his first car many moons ago, he was pretty amusing to watch as he tried to find something juuuuust right. It was a long process and needless to say the learning curve was steep. This post originally ran in 2008 and since I’m in the middle of finishing the last book in my XTC resorts series and this list STILL cracks me up (mostly because he did all of these things) … I had to share an encore!

1. You might have a problem if the car is parked at a house that appears to only be inhabited by parrots.

2. It probably isn’t a good buy if the seller has to empty out boxes, small appliances and various other crap so you can test drive it.  

3. You might have a problem if you stand looking at the car for ten minutes and the seller only peeks at you from behind the kitchen curtain, but never comes out.

4. You probably should walk away if you ask the seller where the title is and they say “the what?”

5. It might not be worth buying If you have to tow it to get it to the mechanic to check it out.

6. You might not want to pursue it if the For Sale sign has no phone number listed.

7. Remember — leather repaired with duct tape doesn’t mean luxury.

8. If the seller won’t talk to your mother you might have a problem.

9. You probably shouldn’t bother if when you mention the year of the car to your friends they say their grandparents aren’t even that old.

10. You might really want to walk away if you do pursue it, by googling the yellow pages with the address where the car is parked – and they say there’s no phone number available.

11. It’s not a keeper if you walk around the rear of the vehicle and one side of the back bumper is propped up on blocks and they say “It’s no problem, the spare tire’s in the trunk”.

12. There could be a problem with it if the inspection sticker is three years old. 

13. It’s probably not a good idea to buy a car if the seller tells you the odometer no longer works, but it only broke last week.

And just to make the car buying easier on every woman, I think more cars should come with this kind of option!