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| Plodding through downtown Dallas traffic last week in my Honda Accord... Yes, my car was fully stopped at the time (with traffic continuing to inch along in front of me). |
What drives you? In terms of automobiles, at least?
Is it a sports car? Or pickup trucks?
Some people don't seem to care what they drive; they simply drive whatever they can afford.
Finances aside, however, many of us DO care what we drive. Maybe more than we should. To us, our vehicles aren't simply a utility for geographic mobility. Our vehicles exist as an extension of our personality, or what we aspire to be, or how we want others to think about us.
In other words, our vehicles aren't just for geographic mobility, but social mobility, perhaps? However feigned it may be?
I'll admit that my personal history as a vehicle owner has been a mix of pretension and practicality. In terms of practicality, I've always driven what I could reasonably afford. But while I've been able to afford a two-seater, for example, I haven't ever considered those practical. Meanwhile, a pickup truck is indeed practical, but it's really only practical if you have to haul stuff, which I don't.
It will bore people who love exotic cars, but my vehicular expression has been through conventional two-door coupes and four-door sedans. So no exotics, alas - or family-hauler station wagons or SUVs, either! Or convertibles, although now that I'm bald, those concerns about my hair when I was younger no longer apply! And since I'm tall, no sub-compacts.
Yet in terms of pretension, I'm not innocent. I've always purchased each of my vehicles based on what I wanted it to say about me. And yes, what I wanted each automobile to say about myself was always just a little bit more than who I really was.
Except for maybe my current vehicle, a 2009 Honda Accord EX four-cylinder sedan, which I bought brand-new. I wanted a vehicle that was modest but not prudish, and comfortable without being ostentatious. Which has kinda become the whole Honda ethos anyway, right?
This Accord has been my second Honda, and frankly, it has served me very well over these 16 years. Even if today, I could afford to trade it in on something else - anything else! - this car gives me no practical reason to do so. It's been remarkably reliable, and all I have to do is change the oil and rotate its tires.
It's not luxurious or prestigious or collectible, although I keep it relatively clean. Somebody at my local Kroger supermarket thought it needed a dent from their shopping cart, but other than that, its body is still in great shape.
Considering my history of cars, and what I thought they did for me and my image, sometimes now I marvel at how I have no desire to trade in my current Honda. I don't feel ashamed when I walk up to that aging sedan while parked in a trendy or affluent Dallas neighborhood. I still take pride in how clean its interior remains, all these years later. I'm content with it, and considering how discontented I've been throughout my vehicular history, that surprises me today.
You see, my Honda represents not just basic transportation to me, but also something of my own maturation process, as I've transitioned from a person who used to derive considerable gratification, affirmation, and identity from his vehicles, but now views them mostly as appliances for transportation.
I learned to drive using my Mom's 1978 Ford Fairmont coupe, which was an underwhelming car in every respect. It looked okay, for a car of its era: Silver with a red vinyl roof and red fabric interior. Mechanically, it was utterly functional, and fairly reliable when new, but hardly fun or impressive. The older it got, the more it broke down, stranding me at least twice, which is something none of my subsequent cars have done. Surprisingly, Mom and Dad kept that coupe until the early 1990s, when one of my father's co-workers bought it despite knowing its provenance.
1. 1977 Buick Riviera; purchased used in 1984
When I graduated from high school, I purchased a 1977 Buick Riviera as my first vehicle. I'd seen it sitting in the corner of a used-car lot here in town, and at first, the dealer didn't take me seriously when I inquired about it. What did a tall, thin, red-blooded American teenager want with an old person's luxury barge like that Riviera? Two-tone light blue, with a padded vinyl landau top and crushed velour seats. Opera lamps, sport wheels, all the bells and whistles from Buick's options list, except for a sunroof. A real chick-magnet, right?
If it all sounds ostentatious, that's because its unabashed luxury and size were intentionally disproportionate to the diminutive simplicity of that Fairmont. Under its long hood, my Buick boasted GM's legendary 350 V8 engine, which when I floored it, provided a rush of not just power to the engine, but adrenaline to myself and my passengers, as that huge mass of steel could suddenly out-maneuver many lesser-powered cars.
Granted, there were times where I could actually watch my dashboard's gas gauge literally sink in real time as I accelerated. Yes, it was made before Detroit's "gas-guzzling" era came to an end. With a powerful engine like that, you'd probably think I'd end up getting into a wreck while joyriding and exploiting its surprising performance. Alas, its end came quite ironically - innocently parked in a mall parking lot while I was at work, one of two parked cars totaled by a drunk driver in a Dodge.
2. 1981 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Brougham sedan; purchased used in 1986
3. 1989 Mercury Sable LS sedan; purchased new
When I entered grad school, I figured I needed to up the ante in terms of driving around like a professional person, and my Oldsmobile was experiencing some costly mechanical issues. So I traded it in for a 1989 Mercury Sable LS, which offered my first (and, I decided, last) experience with leather seats.
I liked the ease with which leather allows passengers to glide into and alight from seating surfaces, but here in Texas summertimes, leather gets incredibly hot. And it also still gets frigid in winter. I just didn't see what was so great about that, with my backside either soaked in perspiration or chilled from the cold. Eventually, the leather on my back seat's headrests literally began to fry from Texas' sunlight (this was right before after-market tinted windows became popular). And all that leather conditioner I massaged into those seats only seemed to exacerbate its scorching. I tried covering up the leather with a blanket, but that looked silly. So ever since then, I've steered clear of leather and/or "pleather" (although I admit some of those materials today seem more resilient).
4. 1997 Mercury Grand Marquis LS sedan; purchased new
In 1997, I began my fourth job, with a company owned by a prominent family. Apparently, I thought maybe a bigger car would befit what I presumed would be an increase in my socioeconomic status. Looking back, I can't remember any other rationale for choosing one of the largest American sedans ever made, but I signed the papers on a humongous, 4-door Mercury Grand Marquis LS V8. White, with tan leather, just like my Sable, and with those leather seats I'd already told myself I wouldn't buy again.
Even before I drove away from the dealership, my salesperson could tell I wasn't convinced I'd purchased the right vehicle. I remember it was the Fourth of July weekend, so he told me to tool around town for the holiday since they were closed anyway, and I would almost certainly fall in love with it.
I drove home, and immediately discovered the Grand Marquis was so grand, it literally didn't fit in our garage! And our house was built during another era of huge Detroit cars, the 1950s. It barely squeezed through the single-car garage door frame, but it was several inches too long, and I couldn't close the garage door! Ours is a two-car garage, and I literally had to open the other garage door to get out. I parked my brand-new car in our driveway. How embarrassing, since our neighbors could see my white elephant with its paper dealer tags sitting outside of our empty garage.
Technically, we had a washing machine and dryer in the garage that I could move to free up some space for that Grand Marquis, but I'd have to call a plumber and electrician to have it done correctly. Back then, Mom and Dad were spending their summers at Mom's childhood home in coastal Maine, which she'd inherited after my grandmother died. I called them up and told them, and they were perplexed over why I needed such a large car to begin with. Sure, we guess you can move the washing machine and dryer, but to what part of the garage? Tell us again why you need a Grand Marquis?
I took it out onto a local freeway, and its floaty ride almost made me sick. Not sick from its actual buoyancy, you understand, but because that sensation made me realize I'd purchased a senior citizen's cream puff!
On the one hand, it was cool to see potholes coming and only hearing a murmur from the suspension while gliding over them. On the other hand, I had to turn my steering wheel forever to make the slightest turn, and I felt like I needed to schedule an appointment to begin any braking process. I was piloting an oil tanker, not a passenger car! My new boss and his family were out of town for the holiday, but they'd invited me to use their luxurious home's swimming pool, so some friends came over and I took them for a short ride in that barge. And while they were polite, I could tell they didn't know why I'd bought it.
Ohmygoodness. Not only did I not like the car, I realized it would send all the wrong signals about who I thought I was, and portray me in an even worse light than simply being pretentious.
I mean, for most of my life, I've known I'm weird. But I certainly didn't need to pay good money for my car to broadcast that fact!
So after the holiday, I humbly drove back over to the dealership. My salesperson wasn't surprised at all, but he had to work hard to convince his managers that they really should take the car back. In retrospect, I have no idea why the salesperson advocated on my behalf, instead of simply shrugging his shoulders and pointing to my signatures on their ream of purchase documents. But the dealership's leadership eventually consented. I'd kept the car in pristine condition, and I'd only put a minimal amount of miles on it. I'd driven it off the lot with practically none, meaning it still had fewer miles on the odometer than many of their other cars (do some people take test drives to Houston and back, I wondered). However, they would take it back only if I purchased something else from their stock.
5. 1997 Mercury Cougar XR-7 coupe; purchased new
Fair enough, right? Fortunately, they had sitting right by the showroom a gleaming light blue metallic Mercury Cougar XR-7 V8. It was a two-door coupe, but it was much more reasonably sized, plus its price was quite a bit lower than the Grand Marquis. And the dealership was even willing to transfer the same discounted financing package they'd given me for the Grand Marquis. Frankly, even though I wasn't crazy about a sports car, I couldn't refuse their willingness to work with me.
And hey - that Cougar has been the sportiest car I've ever owned! It's probably been the most appropriate one for me, at least when I was still relatively young. It had a spoiler, huge rally wheels, wide tires, deep (cloth) bucket seats in front, and contoured seating for only two people in the back - not three. Thanks to that V8, its performance was smile-inducing. I also learned that its body style was Ford's last mid-sized design for its Thunderbird/Cougar pairing; the next year, Ford would drop the Thunderbird completely, and only offer a compact, ugly little Cougar.
I didn't think any more about Ford's model change until about a year later, when I read where my larger Cougar wasn't depreciating as much as would otherwise be expected. In fact, my car's body style was in demand from customers who'd been caught off-guard by Ford's decision to downsize the model. Sure enough, on a whim, I half-heartedly put it up for sale, and quickly got what I'd thought had been an ambitious asking price! The middle-aged couple who bought it told me their banker was dubious about the price they were willing to pay for it, until the banker did some research to learn why the car's value was surprisingly high. Before I realized it, I was in the market for yet another car.
6. 1998 Chevrolet Malibu LS sedan; purchased new
You'll notice that up until now, I'd been a staunchly patriotic American car buyer. Nothing but Detroit steel for me. However, my allegiance to Detroit began to waver with my next vehicle, a tidy-looking but atrociously-built Chevy Malibu LS. It was peppy and comfortable and roomy, for a smallish mid-sized sedan. But almost immediately, it started falling apart.
Let me see if I can remember all of its flaws. The first time I washed it, water seeped down the inside of its driver's door window. So I made sure the window was completely closed, and washed it again. Same seepage.
As I'd drive about, I noticed a lot of breezy wind noise coming from that door, and after several trips to the dealership, their mechanics determined the door had been constructed improperly. It literally didn't fit into the car's frame, which also explained why the window wouldn't close completely.
By now, it had developed an oil leak that the dealership couldn't manage to fix. Sometimes, it simply wouldn't start. Eventually, the dealership told me my only option was to file for a buy-back from Chevrolet through Texas' lemon laws.
After a stressful hearing moderated at the Better Business Bureau's Fort Worth office, Chevrolet was forced to refund my money, less depreciation. But the representative from Chevrolet on that conference call was so ugly and condescending to me, I vowed to never purchase another new Chevy ever again.
7. 1999 Buick Regal LS sedan; purchased new
I did return to the same GM dealership, however, since they weren't at fault, and purchased a new 1999 Buick Regal LS. It was the right size for me, it had lots of comfort and luxury for the price, and I liked how it looked, even when an acquaintance told me obliquely that what he considered to be its dowdy appearance befitted my personality!
Yeah, I've had some good friends over the years...
Thankfully, my Regal ownership was only marred by four other drivers rear-ending me, scuffing up my back bumper until I finally stopped getting it fixed. Every incident happened when my car was either stopped or parked. One Sunday I was parallel-parked on a side street near my Dallas church; I came out after services to find a Ford Explorer wedged into my back bumper. I left a polite note with my e-mail address on its windshield, only to receive a curt response from the owner who had also attended my church that morning and suggested I take the sermon to heart and be gracious and forgiving.
I kid you not.
Another Ford Explorer driver was even more impertinent. While on our way home from dinner one evening, before Mom and Dad were again leaving for Maine that summer, we got rear-ended hard. We were stuck in traffic and I watched in my rear-view mirror as a woman piloted her Explorer into my trunk at normal speed without ever looking straight ahead or braking. I yelled to Mom and Dad to brace for impact, which we all did by leaning forward and cradling our heads in our hands.
Thankfully, none of us were injured at all.
Have you ever heard of "crumple zones"? They're engineered sheets of aluminum and steel that are designed to fold together - to "crumple" - and thereby absorb significant amounts of energy from certain types of crashes. Well, my Buick's crumple zones worked just like they were supposed to. Its sheetmetal, from its undamaged rear window to the bumper, including fenders and trunk, was all crunched together like a metal accordion.
My dealership's body shop was able to fix everything and deliver my Buick without a trace of twisted metal. However, not long after that, a friend of mine was rear-ended in her Toyota, and her insurance agent warned her that while her car was fixed to industry standards, it would never provide exactly the same amount of protection in another crash as it had provided with factory-installed crumple zones. So after getting her Toyota back from her body shop, she promptly traded it in for a brand-new one.
I called my insurance agent and asked her about re-manufactured crumple zones, since obviously, she knew all about my wreck. And she corroborated what my friend's insurance agent had told her. So I went ahead and traded-in my Buick, and took something of a hit on its value because I told my new dealership's salesperson about the accident.
8. 2002 Volkswagen Passat GLS sedan; purchased new
Actually, the salesperson for my new Volkswagen admitted that they could run a Carfax on the vehicle, and besides, their in-house estimators would likely have discovered the re-manufactured crumple zones anyway, before they gave me an official trade-in offer. However, the fact that I offered that information up-front made them willing to be more generous in their valuation.
As much as I liked my Passat, however, I can't say it was perfect. Its passenger cabin proved to be quite soundproof, which I liked. But that also meant I could hear incessant rattles and rustling from the vehicle itself, no matter how smooth the road was. The dealer finally determined that my interior headliner, of all things, had been installed improperly in the factory in Germany. It was a one-piece unit housing various sensors for airbags and other electronics, and couldn't simply be re-installed. They told me VW flew a specially-trained mechanic down to Texas from New Jersey to remove the original headliner and install a brand-new one from Germany.
For people who usually have nothing good to say about car dealers, my personal experience, as proven with my two Mercurys, my Passat, and even my Malibu/Regal fiasco, indicates that if you treat them the way you'd like to be treated, there's a good chance they just might reciprocate!
During my Passat ownership, I ended up also experiencing an extended period of under-employment, working part-time at a popular Tex-Mex restaurant between full-time jobs. When I eventually got a better job, I decided to pay off the credit card debt I'd accrued. My Passat hadn't depreciated as much as other cars its age, I'd maintained it well, and as much as I liked it, I decided my financial needs were more important. I sold it to a local business owner who wanted an extraordinarily safe vehicle for his accident-prone daughter.
Despite that bizarre headliner issue, my experience with a non-American brand had gone so well, I decided to continue with imports, selecting the highly-reviewed 2006 Honda Accord EX. Unlike my Passat, it was a boring car inside and out, and although it measured slightly larger than my Passat, it felt smaller inside. Its performance was anemic, but it gave me no mechanical problems of any kind whatsoever. Utter functionality with zero personality which, admittedly, matched the Honda experience I'd heard about from all the consumers and experts who rate it so highly.
When I got home from the dealership, I discovered that my father wasn't thrilled with me owning another import. He hadn't said much about my previous Honda, and he'd even congratulated me when I purchased the Passat. But that was because the Passat was a Volkswagen, and he and Mom had themselves owned two VWs when we were still living in upstate New York. So he didn't really consider them an "import". But to him, Hondas were imports, even though both of mine were made in Marysville, Ohio.
The sadly ironic part of his disapproval came from the reality that he'd just begun his long journey into dementia. However, despite the first-phase short-term memory loss he was then exhibiting, he clearly remembered he didn't care for Japanese cars! So I didn't make a big deal about my new Accord. Never bothered to talk about it with him, or point out any of its features. I figured reminding him less about it would be better in the long run. And sure enough, after a while, Dad was quietly complimenting me on how comfortable it was every time he got into it - apparently never remembering he'd ridden in it before.
And would you believe it - I soon felt some deja-vu all over again: An annoying rattle underneath my new Honda was driving me nuts. My first Accord had been trouble-free, and I was frustrated that I couldn't replicate that success. My dealership eventually discovered the problem - my gas tank had been installed improperly! It was rubbing against my muffler, which struck me as being something of a danger risk. For whatever reason, the dealership had to remove (and eventually replace) my entire back seat in the process of fixing my car outside of the factory, but ever since then, my Accord has been problem-free.
Looking back over my personal history as reflected in the cars I've owned, I can make some obvious conclusions.
First, let me reiterate that I CHOSE to purchase each and every one of these vehicles. Nobody gave any of them to me, I didn't inherit any of them, and I wasn't obligated to choose any of them. There were options in every purchase decision, and with the exception of my second car, after the totaled Riviera, I had the option of not buying another car, but keeping the one I had.
I never seemed to be satisfied. At least a couple of my purchases reflected some pretty bad decision-making. I could have waited to make a better decision at another time with different options in play.
Suffice it to say that my car-buying history proves I don't always act in my own best interest.
Nevertheless, let's focus on the apparent reality that over time, I've come to assign less importance to the status I used to expect my vehicles to convey about me. When friends of mine purchase new vehicles for themselves, my younger self would get smitten by the "gotta-buy-a-new-car" bug. But these days, while I'm happy for my friends and their updated rides, I don't feel chagrin that my own car is as dated as it's become.
That's a sign of progress, right?
Not that I wouldn't enjoy having a new, flashier vehicle myself. But being content with what one has and/or can afford can be something of an unusual character trait in and of itself. And that's a trait I haven't had during most of my life.
I guess like my aging Honda, we'll see how long it lasts!
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