The car saga nears an end

[sal_amanda]

well, after yet another working saturday in the sleep deprived state i'm in, we went to another Honda dealer. and as i believed, our car is not worthless. we tried a very honest approach with this one. we told him up front what was wrong with it. that way, they weren't looking for anything else. we had a frank discussion of what the kelley blue book value is minus the cost of the repair, which turns out to be more like $3,500 if you rate the car as fair, which i probably would if i were being honest. we got $3,200. i had to argue for that, of course, because no dealer gives you what they really will give you on the first try. i had to explain this to john who was horrified that i was arguing at all after what happened at the last dealership. in any case, we were satisfied and we will soon be the proud owners of a Honda Element EX 4WD in orange. as soon as it gets here from Ohio and we actually get to test it out. it's finishing production today, tomorrow, or monday. they weren't sure what the weekend schedule was. meanwhile, john still has to rely on the kindness of others and rental car companies because the subaru started smoking when it got back from the 8 1/2 mile drive from the dealership. it's only got one more trip to go back to the dealership. i gotta have faith that it can do it.