Dos manos in Matamoros

 Love and Loss on four wheels

Falling in love at first sight is risky.  You know nothing of the past history, of what underlies that enchanting façade.  But the emotion and the magnetism are irresistible.  Falling in love with a car at first sight—not looking under the hood, not kicking the tires—is not just risky but crazy.

For many years I had a red stick shift Corolla that I loved dearly and kept way past its prime until the inevitable repairs accumulated beyond sustainability.  I went to a local Toyota dealer where many of the repairs had been done and spotted the car of my dreams, except that I had never dreamed of any car or fixed on a model or color or anything else.  But there in front of my eyes was a splendid turquoise car, and the letters on it identified it as a Prius, a hybrid, and if I had given any thought at all to my next car it was to select a hybrid.

Someone else might say my new love was green.  I believe the Toyota promoters said something artful like “sea foam”, but to me it was at first sight and forever turquoise.  I slowly learned that it was a PriusV, a larger car and with the open rear rather than the enclosed trunk.  I learned how many miles had already been driven by its previous owner.  I learned its price and figured out with the dealer’s help how to finance it, the first time I hadn’t been able to buy a used car outright.

I won’t tell you all the adventures and trips I had with that car, only that I bonded totally with it, more even than with my little Corolla, although I missed the stick shift and still do.  Many of us turn our cars into mini houses with every nook and cranny filled with some essential belongings that often we then forget.  A second or third home. A home away from home. My love at first sight was a happy story in spite of the risk. 

I anticipated at least five more years enjoying this faithful beast of burden carrying me safely on short rides and the long ones out and back to my summer home in Michigan.  On those annual migrations I fill the entire car with assorted boxes, books, files, food stuffs emptying my kitchen for my summer renters, clothes, computer, bits of furniture and more. A place for everything and everything in its place.

But a month ago coming back from Manhattan late at night I missed a turn to an exit and ran the car into a guard rail, a very safe thing to do, but devastating.  I didn’t know it then but our partnership or my love affair with the turquoise car had ended. I firmly believed that the damage could be repaired in a few days, but after dillying and dallying for a week the insurance adjuster was adamant that the repairs were too extensive and my car would have to be “totaled,” very ugly and negative word.  We wouldn’t want to “total” a person but that’s the common currency in the insurance world for the majority of cars sustaining accidents, or at least that what my repair guys told me.  They said the owner has no say and they, the experts in auto body parts and repairs, also have no say.  Only the insurance adjuster’s word is law.  Apparently if you absolutely cannot bear this you have the option of taking whatever payout they give you for your totaled car, using it to have the car repaired, but they then limit their future insurance to those times when the other driver has hit you and not to anything that you might have initiated like my encounter with the guard rail.

I went back multiple times to the very friendly and consoling repair guy to visit my car on his lot, surrounded by dozens of other damaged cars, to try to remember and extract all my belongings (many of them buried in niches and forgotten).

I had to wait four days while the insurance company procrastinated the payout.  I filled out papers they sent online, signed them as directed, fed exed them as directed, and expected the $$ to show up in a day or two in my checking account. No such luck.  More papers showed up online, more signatures plus a request for the precise reading on the odometer, something their adjuster obviously noted when doing the inspection of the car and that was now hard for me and even hard for the repair guys to read.  But they managed to jumpstart the engine, read the numbers for me, and once again commiserate and assure me that many of their customers had the same dealings with insurance companies.  This new form with the odometer information, 99,507 miles, had to be notarized and then once again taken to the Fed Ex store and sent on its way.  It took three tries to find a notary on duty, but I am nothing if not persistent and managed to find one and take that form to the Fed Ex.  The insurance company had promised to send the funds electronically straight to my checking account; but no, with all their papers signed, notarized, fed exed, they put the check into the mail.

In the first two weeks I gave no thought to seeking out a new car because I was convinced mine would soon be repaired and back with me.  When the verdict was delivered I had a meltdown or freaked out or whatever other language fits.  I didn’t think of cars.com.  I put a few queries to Google about used PriusVs “near me” but then went over to the same nearby Toyota dealer where I had spotted that turquoise car and fallen in love, hoping for another miracle, another coup de foudre.  Nope.  Rows and rows of ugly big expensive Ravas (I apologize if you have and love a Rava.) A couple of red cars that caught my eye but I didn’t even check what models because they were $30K or $40K and way out of my range.

Exactly two cars seemed possible, neither of them a hybrid, but in my price range more or less.  One white Corolla, 2021, and a silver Camry, 2017.  That was my complete search.  I wanted this over and done with and to put my scattered belongings into a car that wasn’t a rental.  I drove them both and much preferred the Camry with its 38,000 miles and in spite of the fact that it had fewer warranties, actually NO warranty as I later found out.  The sales lady kept citing sexy perks like heated seats, nothing I had ever coveted, but the Camry also has a very nice sun roof.  I could really enjoy that.  But until the insurance company stopped procrastinating and coughed up the$$ I was in limbo.

This blog started with a love story that ended in frustration.  I’m not easily deterred or defeated and pushed on for a happier ending. I wanted to begin my new relationship with the silver 2017 Camry.  Toyota’s name for silver is “celestial.”  It remains to be seen just how heavenly it is.  I hate getting into an unfamiliar car and trying to figure out what buttons to push to get heat or AC or find the radio stations I want to listen to or the appropriate lights or any of the bells and whistles.

I had worked out a plan to purchase the car in anticipation of the insurance funds (the check’s in the mail) with a combination of the funds currently in my checking account, of course intended for other scheduled expenses but none in the next week, and by using two credit cards that are currently paid up with the next due date a full month away by which I should have received the insurance money and even, an unexpected bonus, a tax refund.  It all seemed just barely possible though complicated.  But at the dealership, check and cards in hand, I learned that they take no checks unless certified, and no cards unless debit, not credit. None of my sources was acceptable.  I was ready to give up and walk away from that car and that dealership, but had already spent so much time on it that I still wanted to make it work.  But this meant doing what I absolutely didn’t want to do and financing about half of the cost at an obscene 9.5 interest rate.  I had no alternative. Now I will have to pay off that financing before the first payment and interest will be due.  Of course if they had taken my credit cards I would have had the same plan to pay those off before their due dates, so that this arrangement, while time consuming and frustrating, should work.

One last twist was the registration.  The auto body shop had destroyed the one on the windshield and I didn’t know whether I had a copy, but finally found one in a file at home.  But it had expired on March 30 without any notice from the DMV.  They must be short-staffed. So, one more expense and more time to get new registration and new plates.  And then of course with the financing many papers to sign so quickly and so numerous that it’s impossible to read the small print.  But the car is now mine and sitting outside my house and I have to hope it’s not a lemon and I haven’t made a huge mistake.   Maybe over time I will bond with this new car but I will never love it as I did that turquoise Prius at first sight.