When I was first paralyzed, I bought a brand-new 1981 K-Car courtesy of
Dodge and Lee Iacoca. After 5 years, the
interior fabric had been pounded to mincemeat by my wheelchair.
Since then I have bought used cars.
One more K-car and followed by two Ford Thunderbirds and two Mercury
Cougars. The Tbirds and the Cougars are
the same car with minor cosmetic differences.
I like to buy older versions with low mileage. I got my current car with 80,000 miles and
put 60,000 miles on it over 5+ years. I
rarely drive further than the local Bellevue/Seattle area.
Tomorrow I am going to buy my 3rd Thunderbird for $2700. It is a 1996 with 65000 miles. It appears to be in mint condition being sold
by the second owner that had since it was all but new. He is
in Belfair near Bremerton. Leslee is
going to drop me off at the ferry dock tomorrow morning and Larry the seller
will pick me up at the Bremerton dock.
Assuming all goes well and I buy the car, I will drive him home and then
bring the car home. I have yet to decide
between driving around via the Tacoma Narrows bridge or back on the ferry. For the sake of variety, I will likely take
the bridge.
I really like the 1989-1997 model years. They are a bit bigger than the newer
models. Most importantly, they have a
higher roofline that makes it easier for me to get in the car due to having
steel rods in my back that preclude bending my back to get in.
I found my last two cars on Craigslist.
Low-mileage versions are getting harder to find and so I have taken to
searching across the US and Canada using ebay.
Others cars of this caliber have gone for as much as $5000. I think I am getting a great deal on this one
at $2700. I was prepared to fly across
the country and drive one home. A $5 ferry
trip to Bremerton is a small price to pay in this case.
The car did not sell on ebay due to having a reserve (minimum auction
bid) that was not met. I emailed Larry
after the auction closed asking for a price.
When he said $2700, I did not even try to negotiate a better price. He held it two weeks for me until I got paid
again so that I would have the money to buy the car.
I have spent several hours devising the best plan to get the car. Mostly I was wwaayy overthinking limited
information in the sandbox of my mind. It
turns out that I can simply go to the ferry dock, catch the elevator and get on
the ferry like that as a walk-on.
Otherwise it would be a ginormous ramp across Alaskan Way in Seattle.
One part of the process that had me terrified was me having $2700 cash
in my pocket on a Friday night. The
timeline is such that I need to have the money before the bank opens on
Saturday. I was in tears this morning at
the meeting discussing how frustrating it is to not trust myself to not spend
the money on drugs instead of buying the car for even one night. After the meeting, Craig suggested the
blindingly obvious—get a cashier’s check.
Shows you where my own best thinking leaves me—trapped in a corner with
now way out unless I get help from others.
I am grateful to Craig for his suggestion of the obvious (in hindsight), meetings for keeping me sober, Craigslist and
ebay for being great places to find specific used cars, Leslee for the ride,
portable hand-controls, Lea for going with me, Larry for meeting me at the dock,
having a pension that enables me to live independently with my own
transportation, for roads that take me everywhere I need to go, and my
wonderful mechanic Ali that does a fantastic job of maintaining my cars for
me. First thing I do will be to have him
inspect the car, probably get a new battery, oil change and other minor maintenance.
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