Wrecks and Owning a Ten Year Old Car

We had a wreck. More correctly; we had two wrecks. One was in Washington D.C. where someone rear-ended our rental, so it was not really an issue. However, the one the week we got back was kind of a "big deal". For one, it caused an injury to my wife's thumb which required surgery, and secondly, it totaled the Honda.... our much beloved, 40mpg, 2008 Civic Hybrid. May it rest in peace. 

I've come to the conclusion that I hate car shopping!!! That's weird for me since I used to love it. That should be obvious for a person who's owned a VW GTI, a Honda CRX, an Audi 90 and even a BMW M5, but now...... I absolutely detested the experience! It's not that I've lost the touch, I haven't. I was able to identify a good price, good mileage, on a good car.... That wasn't the issue. It's the circumstances, that's the problem. 

I'm a man with a ball and chain! Let me start from the beginning:

• We got the insurance part squared away and they paid out about what we were expecting, $4400.
• It was decided that we'd just spend that amount on a car and no more since we're paying on the "new" Tahoe still for 3 more years. So the logical thing is to get something that'll bridge the gap, then get another vehicle after the truck is paid off, at which time, my son will be about driving age and will need a car. So we were really shopping for him.... 3 years ahead of time!
• We liked the Civic and the kind of gas mileage that it got. It makes a good pairing with the rather large SUV, that's the other vehicle. 
• We're still a family of four, with rapidly growing kids, so 2-door cars or trucks were "out".
• It needed to fit my wife's list of needs and avoid her dislikes (read prejudices). That would include anything boxy, wagon, minivan, weird brands (sorry Subaru or anything European), or "cheap", which leaves Honda and Toyota. Neither one of us are Nissan fans and the rental, which was a Nissan Versa reinforced our opinions.

So, a Honda or Toyota of similar year as our '08 Civic with less than 150,000 miles was on my list. Oh yeah, we both dislike my father-in-law's Camry, so....... Accord, or Civic. She decided the Accord was too big, which...... led us right back to where we were 6 years ago when we bought the Civic. A Civic!

You know; Craigslist is a wonderful thing, and I've been able to find all manner of useful stuff on it over the years. And this occasion was no different. I was able to find 2006 to 2010 Civics by the dozen. I will have to say that "Salvage Titled" cars and the "Coupe" version were a pain in my behind, but overall, it wasn't too bad. 

The problem was that, although I could find cars I wanted..... at a good price, they'd sell before I could get off of work to go and look at them! This happened with about 5 different vehicles, and DFW is a big place, so just getting over to them was a problem as well. 

...... but yesterday, we scored! We finally got a a 2006 Civic with 94,000 miles on it before it sold. So we bought it. Does it have warts? Ah..... it's a 10+ year old car..... enough said. But it will work. Pretty much everything important works on it. It has the regular gas engine, which is something that I liked. Not that I was unhappy with the Hybrid (the gas mileage was great), but there's a reason they only warranty those batteries for 100 to 150K miles. The replacements for them run between $2000 and 4000. We already ran across a 2006 Prius with a bad one. Research showed replacements from Toyota was a cool $3960..... ouch! They were asking $4000 for that car so the battery replacement would have doubled the price. We paid $3950 for the Civic with less than 100,000 miles on it. Those engines routinely run to well over 200K. There should be enough life left in this car for 3 years with mom and then more with the boy. Good thing I listened to my wife and saved the expensive Weathertech mats out of the old Civic. Maybe she was telling me something.....