How to Buy a Car

Liz here:

We leave Paihia and begin our 'real' traveling February 18th (or thereabouts.) With that in mind, we need a vehicle. Buying a used one, and selling it again before we leave, is the most economical and practical option; hitch-hiking is cheap but a wee bit sketchy and a lot bit time consuming, and bus tickets or renting camper vans adds up very very quickly. New Zealand is rife with used cars for sale, and finding the one that's right for us is the next mission.

The problem is, there will be five of us, sharing a car for six weeks. This cannot be a car that is going to make us all hate each other by the end of the trip. Assuming such a car exists.

For awhile, we've been sort of asking around and keeping an eye out for vehicles with signs in the windows, with no luck. Then, the other night at work, a car fell into my lap. Manny's friend May, an American from California, stopped in to say hi to him. She and I got chatting, and after explaining that she's leaving NZ for Australia in a few days, she asked me, "Hey, you don't want to buy a car by any chance, do you?" "Yes!" I practically screamed. "Yes, I do!"

The next day, then, by appointment, she showed up at our flat with another American friend, as well as the car - a 1997 white Toyota station wagon with 270,000 km on it. The idea was that I would take a look at it and make sure it was in good shape. Ha! Very funny, eh? This thought was similar to the idea, back in October, of me teaching someone how to play American football, except that I know even less about engines than quarterbacks. But Jen was driving back from their mountain, and Jamie and Lewis were on a field trip in KeriKeri with a work friend, so the task was left to me.

Luckily, Alex gave me a checklist over the phone, so, armed with this, I looked over the car. The first few things I got through easily enough: "When did you buy it? How many k's does it have on it? When does the registration expire?" When it came to checking the coolant or the shocks, however, we had a bit more trouble. May, a typically affable and cheerful Californian, knows about as much about cars as I do, it turns out. We spent several minutes looking for the coolant container under the hood together before finding it. She pressed down on the hood over the tires and we watched the car bounce back up. "That looks okay, right?" I asked. "Sure," she shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea."

It was a little bit sad.

I did discover, however, due to a faded label near the engine, that the cam belt had not been changed since 120,000 km, in late 2002. Neither May or I have the faintest idea what a cam belt does, but everyone I talked to said they need to be changed every 100,000 km - and replacing one costs at least $500. May said she couldn't lower her asking price ($2200), and so we regretfully turned down the car, after a lot of agony on my part.

I mostly thought we should buy the car because May was just so nice. And that, actually, not the many shortcomings in my automobile knowledge, is why I probably should not be put in charge of the new car purchase.