New car

After the unsatisfying experience with CarMax, we felt the odds were slim to find a Celica that we wanted. By the way, looking for a new Celica started when we found out that Toyota stopped production of Celicas and that 2005 was the last year of the Celica. The original plan was to wait 2-3 years before buying a new car, but since Kyoko did not really see any other car that she liked, a Celica would be the best opportunity to buy a car that she really, really liked. In the future, she may find another car she likes but that car may not be affordable.

There were other 2005 Celicas for sale, but they generally had over 20,000 miles and more like 25,000 miles. This one had 17,000 miles but did not have a price listed for it. I thought it was not a good sign, but I thought it would be worth a try to inquire about the car. As it turns out, the price was much higher than we were considering, but I made a counter offer (based on Kelly Blue Book) and he accepted.

The car was being sold at Advantage Auto in Tyler. We worked with Michael Meeves (pronouncd like may-ves) who is the Internet Sales Manager. Unlike the CarMax experience, he was always very responsive to my questions by e-mail. We drove out to Tyler and the car was in immaculate condition, just as he stated. I had put together a list of things to check, and everything seemed to be in good working order. We took the car for a test drive, and it handled very well and the ride was very smooth. Previously, we had test driven a 2002 Celica at CarMax, just to make sure we liked the car, and the ride was definitely rougher on that car.

Anyway, we ended up buying the car! Even though the drive to Tyler is quite a longish drive, it was worth every mile. Working with Michael Meeves was a very positive experience, and I would not hesitate to buy another car from Advantage Auto. They seem to specialize in high quality used cars.

And by the way, View Point Bank gave me an extremely good loan for a used car. I was wondering if she had mistakenly given me the rate for a new car until she asked to verify that the car had less than 60,000 miles on it.