Seattle - buying a car

Spend 2  days researching reliability and prices. Ask people. Look on craigslist. Fret. Ring up. It's gone. Get serious. Research and write lists of camrys civics and corollas by date mileage and prices.  Ring up again. Only ones left are expensive. Get the vin number. Type the vin into on line Carfax to get a report. Discard car as an option when carfax says 11 owners and seller says 3. Or when report says 'total write off' 5 years earlier. Or when mileage on report goes from 100000 to 70000 instead of the other way around!

Hate the whole process. Feel bad I am leaving Sarah with the kids again. Find a car on line again. Look at a map to see how far away it is. Not too far as host Sally is dropping me off and I cant ask her to go miles. This eliminates half the cars. Ring a bloke up.

"I've promised it to a work mate. Can you try again in 24 hrs?"

Find another one. Look on Kelly Blue Book to get a market valuation based on mileage age and condition. feel depressed when asking price is 600$ more than the kbb value meaning it's overpriced.

So it goes a bit like this via text. In this case I got the report myself after sending the first text

I didnt get this one. But a black 96 toyota camry with 153k  and tax until march for 3050$. 500 more than I should have paid. And I didnt even look under the bonnett! And we cant lock the car with a key. I'd rather forget the whole experience. But again learnt a lot.

Hopefullt ut will get us to Las vegas and back in a coupla months.

Xxx