I Want What I Want – The Hyundai Nightmare

Hey there everyone – my name is Scott! I am the other half of Broke Newlyweds . I have a story to tell you and I have to admit I am somewhat at fault for this one.

We were thinking of ways to save money, as usual! If you’ve read any of Nat’s early posts, you are aware that we decided to trade in both our cars with car payments to just one car with a car payment so there was only one car note in the house.

The second car we purchase a used car we paid cash for. We ended up getting a Honda Civic which was suppose to be reliable. Well this car was in the shop on a monthly basis. Not a good thing since we were forking out money left and right for repairs on the car.

We decided since I was working from home now, we did not have to have 2 cars. We decided to get rid of the Civic and go down to one car. We found a buyer and we sold it.

The day after we sold it, I was like oh man, now I have no way to go to my boxing classes. I was like guess we can try and figure a way to carpool to get there. That was not going to happen either for the fact class starts at 630 pm. Nat did get home until well after that.

I figured I would just suck it up and deal with it. Then she was gone one day at work and I wanted something to drink besides water so I had to walk to the store on my lunch break and that took about 20 min. I have to say I am spoiled and I wanted a car back.

I know you are saying a car is really not a need if you work at home but I tried and lasted all a week with no car.  I tried to cover up the fact that I was not feeling not having a car but I don’t think I did a very good job. Nat knew better and  could see right through me. She knew I wasn’t happy. I finally broke down and said I am not happy about not having a car.

I have always had a car. It didn’t feel right normal to me not to have one. So this is where it begins. We started looking all over again for another car. We looked and looked only to keep finding pieces of junk for cars.

We said okay, if we are going to keep looking we need to stay at a budget of $2800 and nothing more. Well, the cars we looked at for this price were something that should have been in a junkyard and something that I would not want to ride in. Nat found a perfect car. It was a 2000 Hyundai Elantra. It was in good condition with low miles. The only thing wrong with it was that center console was missing and had a faded paint job.

I was like, no, let’s keep looking and I ignored that car. We went and looked at another car, which happened to be a 2002 Hyundai Sonata. It had a lot more miles on it but it was fully loaded with all the bells and whistles I wanted. Of course, it was over out budget. It was $3200.

We drove test drove it and it seemed to run just find. I loved the car. There happened to be another guy there looking at the car as well. We both decided we will get the car because to be honest we were tired of looking and I did not want to pass it up.

We had only had it for a day before Nat said she had a bad feeling about the car. She  still wanted to go look at the Elantra she has found previously. She had a better feeling about it. I was thinking what is the point we already have a car but I knew not to go against her judgment because it is normally right.

The Sonata  had started making all kinds of noises.  And the radio kept going off if you hit a bump and so again her instincts were right. Nat called the guy to see if the car was still available. It was. So we went out to go look at the Elantra. I initially did it just to make her happy but after getting there and looking the car over, I actually liked that car more than the Sonata. It didn’t have any of the bell and whistles but it was a nice solid car. We bought the car and now we had two cash cars and needed to sell the Sonata ASAP.

We posted it on craiglist and were having no luck. Nat was starting to freak out that we would never sell the car and so was I. We had no calls for days on the car. We were beginning to thing we would would be stuck with this car.

We kept lowering the price and still nothing. We finally had to drop the price so we took a loose on the car. It finally sold and we lost $500 on the deal.

This was a big price to pay for a car just to go to boxing class in. Do I regret getting the car – yes I do but I do not regret getting the Elantra . I know it is selfish but I still like having a car for when I do want go somewhere. But lesson learned listen to the wife and her instincts before jumping to a decision like this ever again.

So, what would you have done? Do you think I am being selfish? 

PS, I’m almost certain that Nat’s will be writing about her feelings on this topic. So. keep your eyes open for her view point.