Back in '99, my husband decided that his '91 Toyota Celica with 110k miles on it needed to go. I supported him on this because I didn’t the Celica wasn’t very practical with 2 kids and a dog. For some strange reason, I thought he’d just get a bigger Toyota since the Celica never gave us a lick of trouble.
Imagine my surprise when he pulls into the driveway with a '92 Cadillac Seville. Yes, folks, he sells a '91 Celica for a '92 Cadillac that had 70k miles. What the hell was he thinking? Despite his many attempts to convince me that he had bought a “sports” car, I wasn’t buying it. It was a little old man car. And it made me terribly motion sick. I hated that damn car.
Fast forward to Dec '04. Hubby decides he needs a new (used) car. I told him that unless he allowed me to test drive the thing, I wouldn’t trade cars with him anymore (when he wanted to go fishing,etc.). After all, he test drove all the mini-vans we were looking at and had input on my car. If you’re going to trade cars on a regular basis, both parties should have input.
So he took me along and now we’re both happy. I don’t avoid his car like the plague and we can trade anytime.
It sounds to me like she had his implicit agreement. Sure, he may not have thought things through completely, but she did call him before finalizing things and he didn’t voice any complaints then. Yes, it wasn’t what they’d agreed to earlier, but if they can’t work it out to return it, I think gritting his teeth and driving it as little as possible is the way to go.
Heck, 110k on the odo is just broken in with a Toyota. I know a couple of mechanics they buy them for three figures at around 200k (in good maintainance) and keep 'em going for another 100k+ with just a small investment of labor and parts.
Surprise? I’d be thinking more along the lines of revulsion. 70k is nearing the end of the road for that vintage of Caddie. (Fortunately, Caddies have gotten substantially better over the last decade.)
Ah, well, mistake accepted and marriage continued. You two must have a good conflict resolution method.
The chance that the dealer will take the car back is very slim. Once a car has been registered, it can only be sold as a used car, so at best it’s retail value is about 80% that of a new car. They might give a good trade in on a more expensive Ford. I doubt they’d take it as a trade on a Escape hybrid, since they are in very limited supply at the moment.
I was once able to talk my way out of a car purchase for which I’d signed a purchase agreement – but only because I hadn’t taken delivery of the car yet. And I did have to pay them for the cost they’d incurred in transporting the car from another dealership.
It could be worse - my friend’s wife essentially pulled this stunt when they bought their house. Five years down the road, and it’s still an almost-daily argument.
You may not be able to get rid of it, unless the dealership takes pity on you and allows you to trade it in for a better model. And, if your fiancee loves it and her name is on the title, then let her be the one to drive it all the time. Offer to buy her a couple seat covers to protect the seats. I had one of these for the back seat of my last car - I had a carsick dog I needed to transport to the vet from time to time. You just throw 'em in the wash when they get dirty. When I got rid of the 11-year-old Subaru last year, the seats still looked brand new.
Oh, and I can relate about the car thing - my husband bought a $27,000 sports car about 10 years ago without consulting me first. At all. Things did not go well for him that day.
I don’t think in this case, though, that you can really accuse the fiancee of doing anything wrong, as she did contact you and tell you what she was doing. You missed your opportunity to object at that point. Sounds like you’ll just have to say that you hate the car and you want to see what you can do at this point about fixing it and hope she agrees.
True, my Dad had two self made millionaires (brothers too) as customers in the bank. One had a customised Porcshe 911, the other a late 80s Toyota with over 100k on the clock. The owner of the Toyota was impressed Dad had an early 80s Volvo estate and saw him as a frugal man (and not just someone who needed a big cheap car )
So do all Fords have a bad reputation in the US? IIRC the Focus is the UK’s best seller and well liked
From what I’ve seen, the Focuses here are slightly different than the European models. I haven’t driven an American model, but I drove some 2.0L version of the 2000 Focus in Europe, and absolutely fell in love with the car. It was just a pleasure to drive. (And I’m a Japanese car kinda guy.) Too bad to hear they’re such crap, at least in the States.
Your finance sounds emotional and impulsive and is apparenlty willing to let these feelings guide large and important decisions. I’ll bet she’s also a lot of fun. People like this are fun for a while, but as you get older and the consequences of your SO making unilateral, poorly thought out decisions begins to pile up it’s much less fun.
May I throw something rather unexpected into this argument?
I think you got a good deal. The Focus is the better car by a clear shot. If she drove the Ford and the Honda back-to-back, she’d definitely have preferred the Focus.
Honda really, REALLY screwed up the latest (2001-) Civic. It handles like an old man’s car now. The strut suspension doesn’t do much for the ride either. On the other hand, the Focus is one of the best-handling sedans around - on par with a BMW 3-series. It’s by far the more fun of the two to drive - the difference would be immediately apparent on the first twisty road you get to. The Ford has really crisp turn-in, great steering feel, and very tight body control. The Honda is sloppy, dead-feeling, and floaty. One of the reasons you’d buy a small car is the handling - and the Focus is better at that than any other small, practical car that isn’t a MINI.
Anyway, Consumer Reports rates both the Focus and the Civic as having identical, “average” reliability. It won’t let you down, especially an '03.
On the other hand, you really do have a problem with the brakes. If they weren’t bedded in properly, the pads could be ruined. Any squeal on new pads that doesn’t go away in less than 10 miles indicates that this has happened. If I were you, I’d take it back to the dealership and tell them that there’s a serious problem with the brakes. Don’t accept any excuse along the lines of “They all do that” - only the ones that were driven by an idiot in their first couple miles do. If you want the very best brake pads, Performance Friction’s carbon-metallic “90” series are the ones to go for - they give tremendous stopping power and great pedal feel when cold, hot, or in between, and they never fade. They do squeal and grate like hell - but that’s a characteristic of these special-purpose pads. If you just want a quiet set of brakes, EBC Greenstuff are good pads.
Nope, they’re identical. Brits just have different (and I think a lot better) priorities when deciding which cars they like. Americans don’t seem to give a damn about how their cars drive - and the dynamic capabilities of the Focus are wasted on them.
<insert obligatory Hitchhiker’s Ford Prefect joke here>
Seriously, Ford’s European and PacRim (Holden) cars are generally of completely different design, (though I was under the impression that they’d actually used the European Focus as the basis for the American version.) They don’t make a common car for all markets because of homologation issues and the fact that Americans are impressed by V6s and big Eights, even if they have crappy milage, low hp:weight ratios and poor handling. From what (little) I know of low- to middle-range European cars they tend to be better handling than their American counterparts, and the market for pocket rockets, like the Subaru Impreza Turbo (basically the WRX in this country), is much greater, 'cause us Americans like our Ford Expeditions and Hummer H2s. :rolleyes:
IMHO, Ford (America) made dullish but decent cars through the '80s and early '90s, started to dip around the time they came out with the current generation Taurus, and have successively crashed and burned since; I think their only currently profitable products are the large trucks and SUVs. GM, on the other hand, improved slightly in the early '90s (it was hard not to) and currently has somewhat better designs and a higher overall build quality; and coming from a former (involuntary) Chevy Corsica and Pontiac 6000 driver it pains me to say this. Then there’s Chrysler. :shakes head: Good concepts, piss-poor executions.
YMMV, but this is entirely contrary to my experience. I’ve driven an '02 330xi, and the couple of afformentioned Foci, and there is just no comparison whatsoever. The Ford is like every other mini-econo with crappy stock tires and a rather sloppy, dead feeling in cornering. OTOH, one of the local performance driving schools in this area uses the Focus because it’s cheap and, in their opinion, the best handling of its class. Maybe so, but I’ll take a BMW 3 Series, Audi A4, or Subaru Impreza/Legacy over it any day for handling.
I have to agree, though, that Honda has really dead-sticked the Civic into its current design path. It used to be a really great handling rollerskate that could be improved even more by some aftermarket performance parts. Now that all the riceboys are putting buzzbomb mufflers and dropped anti-performance suspension kits on them, I guess they figured they don’t need to make a good handling car anymore. Too bad; the old Civics with the front wishbones were wonderful. The new strut suspension? As bad as anything out there.
I’d still take the Honda over the Ford for reliability, though, unless evidence shows otherwise.
They were also comparing the Accord which is way out of the Focus’s class.
Consumer reports only reports this vehicle’s initial quality. If the Focus follows in line with it’s older sisters and brothers you should expect to have some serious issues with this vehicle in a few years. Honda Civics are 100% solid vehicles and keep going for 10 years. I wouldn’t DREAM of keeping a Focus for 10 years.
Heck, this is the first year (IIRC) that the Focus got an actual good rating from CR.
And as the OP stated, his fiance didn’t buy the car because it handled better. It just looked nicer to her. She bought a $13K car purely over it’s looks. Anyone focusing on handling isn’t going to look at a Civic or a Focus SE anyways (Toyota Matrix would have been a much better choice! :D).
Good luck getting out of this car. You probably are going to lose so much money if you sell it’s going to make you sick.
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