No Idea

Goooo Cougar!!

I bought a car on Saturday, the events leading up to buying this car will be detailed in this newsletter, but first let us get the actual car I bought out of the way. Now let us think about the factors I had to consider when buying a car:

1. Petrol is relatively expensive here - $0.90 a litre
2. My parking space is quite small
3. I don’t have much money
4. I don’t need to drive much but when I do it is mainly a couple of hours on the freeway, reliability is required for these freeway miles.

Now let me think which of the above factors were considered responsibly by me on Saturday.

The car is a 1979 Mercury Cougar, it has a 5.7 litre V8 engine which develops lots of horses but unfortunately the car weighs more than the van I had last year and so it responds sluggishly to the power supplied - 5.7 litres in this car is considered “underpowered”. I get about 15-17mpg and can almost do 100mph if I push it hard.

The car is around 17ft long and 6.5ft wide, the boot (trunk) could probably carry less 9 irons than a VW Golf. Also the back seating area is probably the same as a Golf. The front seats are, however, luxurious with a working power seat on the drivers side. Note in one of the attached images how tight the parking is, poor Mr BMW next to me, I now park as close to the concrete pillar on the drivers side and get out of the passenger door. I still don’t know how Mr BMW feels about the situation, I have left a note on my car apologising for my stupid big car.

The car cost me $1700 (U.S.), which is not a lot of money but at the same time it is not cheap for its age.

On the freeway at 70mph the whole car starts to shake, at this stage I have narrowed it down to unbalanced wheels or the transmission being on its way out. I hope it is the former but I have a sneaking suspicion it is the latter. It is always the more expensive option where cars are concerned, always - no exceptions. The guy at the tire center said the wheels can’t really be balanced because although the tyres have great tread they are mis-shaped (not perfectly round) due to their age.

So, apart from the terrible fuel economy, tight parking and suspicious transmission I did pretty well in my purchase. The car is in great cosmetic condition, the paint is shiny, has a few scratches but no rust, it looks like it has been garaged its whole life. The interior is also great, apart from the A/C everything works, including the power seats, power antenna and even the clock! The colour is a little bit of a let down but it is not terrible.

So, how did I end up with this monster? Well - I will quickly tell the tale. I first looked at a car on Wednesday, I think. It was a ‘78 Dodge Aspen, advertised in “mint” condition. I called the guy (Clarence) up and we arranged to meet at a bus stop at the Richmond Centre. He arrived in his ‘84 Pontiac Bonneville and I immediately knew this was going to be an interesting day.

He wore Bermuda shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and Timmy Mallet glasses. We pulled up in his driveway and I was confronted with a rust bucket of a Dodge Aspen. The rear half of this car was 70% rust, the boot was coming out of the rear wing, he had stopped it up with some carpet to stop the spare tyre rolling out of the gaping hole. Although it was in terrible cosmetic condition it did seem to be ok structurally and the engine fired up without a problem. He told me its slant 6 engine was very reliable and got great fuel economy. Eventually after much chatter I got him to take it out on a test drive with me, the car was sluggish it had obviously been sitting for a long time, but it did not seem too bad. I kind of liked the idea of owning a beater. He was asking $1550 for it, this was clearly insane - I offered $800 (this also is way too much but I am stupid) and he said yes right way, at this point I knew I was making a mistake and tried to backtrack. I told myself that the car was probably worth it, sure it had 4 totally bald tyres and needed most of the body panels replacing and the interior was falling apart, but it was still a good solid car underneath - right? Wrong!

While Clarence was in the house looking for the spare set of keys I had a good final last inspection. I was satisfied it was solid underneath until I stumbled across a very rotten section of the frame. It was on the drivers side, the piece of the chassis that holds the suspension assembly onto the car - it came away in my hand and I could see it had buckled somewhat. This was a deal breaker and I was happy, I would go home empty handed but at least my wallet survived to see another day.

I had clearly underestimated Clarence’s determination to shift the car so he could go to China and buy stock for his Dollar store business. We drove around in his Pontiac and got advice from his mechanic who said it could be welded but was not sure how much it would cost - he recommended taking it to a body shop on the other side of town. To do this we needed a moving permit. These are $25 and Clarence tricked me into paying for it by “forgetting” his wallet. I did not want the car at this stage but I was worried if I just told him to take me back to the bus stop he might A) Murder me, or, B) Dump me in the middle of nowhere to make my own way home, or a combination of both.

We eventually got to the body shop where the owner took one look at the car and said it was a $300 car and it would cost $300 to fix it. Clarence offered me the car for $300 and I finally asked him to take me back to the bus stop. The car would have cost me in excess of $500 just to get it on the road, and it would still only be worth $300, the more we drove it the more I realised how awful it was. I was glad to get back on the bus.

After the Dodge fiasco I considered a car Co-op where you share ownership of 80+ cars parked in Vancouver, but this worked out more expensive than owning a car. I then considered a propane powered ‘76 Buick LeSabre, but thought that the propane whilst cheap would be hard to find.

So a couple of days later I end up buying a Mercury Cougar, the process of buying the Cougar was simple and hassle free and not worth writing about. However, the process of actually owning the Coug’ may become well documented.

My parting words shall be, if you go buying cars with dreams in your head beware that they can turn quickly into nightmares. This has happened to me before and it looks like it might be happening again - still, it is all fun and at the end of the day you can buy 10 Cougars for the price of one new crappy hatchback.

September 14th, 2004 

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