Philip Fibiger

buying a car can be such a big headache! so emily and I have been looking at cars for a while. we want to get rid of her old subaru impreza wagon that has 110k miles on it..the all wheel drive that’s so convenient in ithaca won’t be worth much in los angeles. after doing a lot of research and test driving, it looks like a nissan altima is really the best car for the money. good performance for a sedan, all the features we want for LA (air conditioning, cruise, automatic, cd player), and great reliability. we found a ‘98 SE sedan at a dealership w/ leather interior, spoiler, alloy wheels..all the extras..and it only had 9k miles on it. so, we were taking it to a mechanic to have it checked out (they let us take the car home overnight to do this)..and parked for 5 minutes in the lot at work, before driving to sign loan papers, the car just wouldn’t start. the solenoid clicks, but the starter motor doesn’t turn over. the dealer had to send a flatbed truck to pick up the car, and we won’t know what happened to the car, and how it was fixed until friday. grrr