Life Lessons - Buying a Car
By Shane Mclaughlin
I'm writing this article today to tell you about one of my life lessons. Back in about mid 2004 I was out with my father shopping for car, I was going to be starting school
soon so I needed a car that was reliable and got good gas mileage. I didn't really have my heart set on any particular car I just had a few specifics.
After several hours of searching car dealerships I saw a lot of good cars but had passed them up. I was determined to find a car. We checked every dealership in two different
cities. Finally while talking to a salesman at one of the dealerships about what I was looking for he said "Let me call one of my friends at another dealership." He came back and
told us his friend had just what we were looking for. So it went to the other dealership and met up with his friend, he showed me what he had it was a 2001 Ford focus ZX3 with
about 50,000 miles on it. It was a fresh trade in and not even on the lot yet.
I was pretty anxious by this point, so we took the car out and test drove it, everything seemed to work great. So I bought it. About three months went by and the car seemed to
work perfectly. Then one day out of the blue it started to spit and sputter, it was bad it sounded like an old VW Beetle so I killed the engine. When I restarted the car it seemed
to run fine.
About two weeks later I started school, 700 miles away from home and the problem came back but this time it didn't go away. After a few weeks of doing some research I figured
out the problem was due to a faulty DPFE sensor. So I replaced the sensor and my car ran normal again. Then about two weeks later at 2:00 AM parked in front of the gas pumps my
ignition switch locked up. So I went in and told the cashier about the problem she said the car would be fine there until I can get the dealership to come and pick it up when they
open.
I walked home which was about three miles away. At about 7:00 AM I called the Ford dealership and they said they would send a tow truck to pick it up. A little later they
called me back and said the manager of the store had it towed and I would have to deal with the towing company before they can pick it up. By the time I had my car back in working
order it cost me $550.00, $150.00 for the towing company another $400.00 to fix my ignition switch.
Now four years later I'm still stuck with the same car. It has had almost every common problem you will hear about on a Ford focus. In the last four years I've spent close to
$3,500.00 in repairs not including normal maintenance costs.
Needless to say I know that I made a mistake by buying that car. The main thing I learned from all this is, don't make decisions out of haste, do your research so you know
which are getting into. Otherwise you may find yourself the same situation. Do yourself a favor buy a Carfax report.
Shane McLaughlin
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shane_Mclaughlin
