Fewer keys on my chain
Jun. 2nd, 2005 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rscI sold the Saturn yesterday!
It's a year and a half or more since we realized that we really didn't need to run two cars. Initially we thought we should have two in Gloucester, but in Cambridge, with public transportation so handy, it was pretty pointless. So one idea was to find a way to unregister (and hence uninsure) the Saturn during the winter, and leave it on blocks in Gloucester.
But this turned out not to be practical, at least according to my insurance agent, who said we'd have to return the plates every fall and get new ones every spring. Then we noticed that even in the summer we only seemed to use both cars at once about three times, and in all those cases there were other, only slightly less convenient, options.
So I decided it was time to sell the car. But I kept dithering, and winter came, and it didn't seem practical to try to get someone to test-drive it when it had to be dug out first, etc., and then spring got busy and we were away for 10 days and I was dealing with NEFFA and Camp and and and...
I finally got around to posting an ad on craigslist about two weeks ago. After a few days I got email from a couple of people, and after a lot of backing and forthing got them both to look at and test-drive the car, and both of them made offers that were considerably less than I was hoping to get. On the other hand, they were both in kind of a hurry to get a car. So there were a lot of guessing games and "well, I won't pay more than X" and "I really think I should get at least Y", etc., until finally the first guy, in successive emails not half an hour apart (1) offered my original asking price and then (2) told me he'd found another car.
At this point I thought both deals were dead and I was going to have to relist it (ads on craigslist apparently only last a week to ten days) and sell it from Gloucester. Then the second guy asked me how much it would take to make a deal right now, and I suggested a number halfway between my asking price and his original offer, and he immediately accepted it. Which leads me to suspect that I could have gotten more, but by this time I was glad to just be done with it.
So he now has a 1996 Saturn with a mere 46,391 miles on it, and I am out from under paying car insurance (or will be, as soon as the insurance company gets the cancellation). And, since he paid cash, there was a period of an hour or so when I had more $100 bills in my possession than I had probably seen live and up close in my entire life.
I took the plate to registry today. Yes, plate, in the singular; this registration goes back to the first car I ever owned, starting in 1984. In a way I was sorry to part with the plate.
But I'm not sorry to part with the car. Yes, it was a nice car (despite some irritating characteristics), but mostly it was taking up space and making it that much harder to park the other car.
Of course nothing is as simple as it should be. An hour after we did the deal, he called me to let me know that I had screwed up and checked a box that indicated that the odometer reading wasn't accurate (I thought I'd checked the box that said it was accurate, but apparently there's no such box), and he has to send me a form that I have to get notarized to straighten it out, and registry gets an extra $25 (from me, since it was my screwup).
But he has the car, and I have the money, so we're both happy.
It's a year and a half or more since we realized that we really didn't need to run two cars. Initially we thought we should have two in Gloucester, but in Cambridge, with public transportation so handy, it was pretty pointless. So one idea was to find a way to unregister (and hence uninsure) the Saturn during the winter, and leave it on blocks in Gloucester.
But this turned out not to be practical, at least according to my insurance agent, who said we'd have to return the plates every fall and get new ones every spring. Then we noticed that even in the summer we only seemed to use both cars at once about three times, and in all those cases there were other, only slightly less convenient, options.
So I decided it was time to sell the car. But I kept dithering, and winter came, and it didn't seem practical to try to get someone to test-drive it when it had to be dug out first, etc., and then spring got busy and we were away for 10 days and I was dealing with NEFFA and Camp and and and...
I finally got around to posting an ad on craigslist about two weeks ago. After a few days I got email from a couple of people, and after a lot of backing and forthing got them both to look at and test-drive the car, and both of them made offers that were considerably less than I was hoping to get. On the other hand, they were both in kind of a hurry to get a car. So there were a lot of guessing games and "well, I won't pay more than X" and "I really think I should get at least Y", etc., until finally the first guy, in successive emails not half an hour apart (1) offered my original asking price and then (2) told me he'd found another car.
At this point I thought both deals were dead and I was going to have to relist it (ads on craigslist apparently only last a week to ten days) and sell it from Gloucester. Then the second guy asked me how much it would take to make a deal right now, and I suggested a number halfway between my asking price and his original offer, and he immediately accepted it. Which leads me to suspect that I could have gotten more, but by this time I was glad to just be done with it.
So he now has a 1996 Saturn with a mere 46,391 miles on it, and I am out from under paying car insurance (or will be, as soon as the insurance company gets the cancellation). And, since he paid cash, there was a period of an hour or so when I had more $100 bills in my possession than I had probably seen live and up close in my entire life.
I took the plate to registry today. Yes, plate, in the singular; this registration goes back to the first car I ever owned, starting in 1984. In a way I was sorry to part with the plate.
But I'm not sorry to part with the car. Yes, it was a nice car (despite some irritating characteristics), but mostly it was taking up space and making it that much harder to park the other car.
Of course nothing is as simple as it should be. An hour after we did the deal, he called me to let me know that I had screwed up and checked a box that indicated that the odometer reading wasn't accurate (I thought I'd checked the box that said it was accurate, but apparently there's no such box), and he has to send me a form that I have to get notarized to straighten it out, and registry gets an extra $25 (from me, since it was my screwup).
But he has the car, and I have the money, so we're both happy.
