The Center of the Anomaly

Adventures in Advanced Yorling – Car Buying Edition January 11, 2013

So. Over the holiday weekend I brought my car in for long overdue servicing. The front brakes were shot, wheels all sorts of out of alignment and other whatnots. Total cost was in the neighborhood of 900 bucks. Then not too long after I notice steam or smoke coming out from under the hood. Service guy poked around and said, oh yeah – radiator is shot. And of course it some sort of special “dual-core” radiator that’s extra expen$ive. Basically it was going to be around another 800 bucks. Mmmf. This car is a 2001 Toyota RAV 4 with something north of 120,000 miles. It’s time to consider trading it in. I looked at another RAV 4 on the lot as I drove off and noted the MSRP. It’s a starting place to run some numbers and see what I can reasonably afford.

And so it begins. I really like the RAV 4 car design and I’m seriously considering another. This time I think I will buy brand-new instead of used.