Maybe you have a partner in life like our Mercedes Streeter’s, a spouse who tells you to go ahead and buy whatever cars you’ve ever dreamed of, and we’ll adjust the finances and living arrangements accordingly. Now let’s be honest: you don’t.
No, your better half probably looks at cars the way you look at a laptop, washing machine, or a refrigerator. You want a good one, but it doesn’t have to be a fancy brand or the top of the line, just a good value and reliable. For cars, that means one or two decent ones, but nothing outrageous or silly. You’re going to have to fight for what you want in this relationship, and in many cases you’re better off not fighting that hard. What cars does your life partner want to get that you’re, well, not totally on board with?
I know your situation. As a car guy, you strike up a conversation about some crazy, obscure crap like a Delta Integrales or Merkur, and the person you’re talking to eventually asks the dreaded question: what do you drive? That’s when you have to hunker down and admit that, well, we looked at a lot of cars, but we (yeah, we, right) decided to get a Honda Pilot or Toyota Venza or some other such car that immediately sinks your cred.
In our house, my spouse almost intentionally wants to spend money on a car without a “brand name” rather than one that’s “too ostentatious.” Basically, no car that’s the equivalent of a Louis Vuitton purse (which I usually assume is a fake until proven otherwise). On the other hand, I look for stupid bang-for-buck; I determine the car I really want and then figure out how crappy of an example of this dream machine I can afford (and afford to keep running). That’s how I’ve ended up buying stuff like decade-old Mercedes-Benz S-Classes with moon-shot odometer readings.
Since getting married, however, something like, say, a 200,000-mile Bentley Continental has not been in the cards. We occasionally find common ground, but even that doesn’t work. She really wanted a GM-era Saab 9-3 back in the early 2000s; a perfect showy-without-being-showy car that I was reluctant to buy. Don’t get me wrong; I liked these, too, but balked at buying one since I thought it was going to be a pain in the ass to own.
We did buy, and it turned out to be a pain in the ass to own. I don’t remember the straw that broke the camel’s back, but we both sort of gave up a few years later. The solution was to sell our souls to the devil and trade it (at great expense) for a same-year used Lexus. We’ve now had one of these never-open-the-hood brand of vehicles ever since; a grand whopping total of two Lexii over these last two decades, a rare case of getting what you pay for.
Neither of us is in love with these things. That’s a pure compromise right there, where neither party is completely happy but we’re all content.
How about you? What car does your partner want (or you ended up buying) that you hated the idea of getting and despise the fact that you’re making payments on it right now? Let us know now in this safe space; your partner doesn’t give a sh*t about cars and doesn’t read this site, anyway.
Top graphic image: Saab via NetCarShow
The post What Car Does Your Partner Want To Buy That You Dread Getting? appeared first on The Autopian.
