Fortunately, USAA is giving us the full retail Blue Book value, which is just short of $10,000. With this knowledge, enough cash for a decent down payment and a rental which needs to be returned very soon, we trotted off to Carmax and proceeded to shop like we always do, like the entire lot is on fire.
We had some possibilities in mind. We found several candidates online this morning, including two 2009 Hyundai Elantras with lower mileage. One was white, and we almost wanted to get it just to make Gandalf jokes. But neither of them was actually on the lot we were visiting. We had almost decided to settle for an unfortunately painted powder blue one, but it turned out to be manual, and we're strictly automatic people. The first one we looked at in the flesh turned out to be a rather drab and disappointing white 2009 Hyundai Accent with no radio and old-fashioned crank windows. We weren't set on a Hyundai, but the selection was what it was. We were about to go look at some Kias, but then we saw it. Across the lane was a beautiful black 2012 Hyundai Accent, the exact car we had originally set out to buy new three Januaries ago.
It was love at first sight. We had to go a bit over budget, but we didn't care at that point. We were driving away with it, and that was the end of it. Turns out it was a fleet car in its previous life, half as old and half as well-traveled as Dave's old car. I always felt just a teensy bit bad for sniping the new car out from under him back in 2012 when we bought the new Elantra, so now it's his turn to have the spiffy new wheels. And now we have a very fashionable complementary black and white set of 2012 Hyundais.
I’m sorry to hear about losing your old Elantra. I hope you don’t encounter those kind of situations again in the future. Anyway, you have some pretty neat cars to choose from. I hope whichever you go with will last you for years to come. Thanks for sharing this with us. Drive safe!
ReplyDeleteDiana Hayes @ Baldwin Subaru