Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 Saying goodbye, again. 

I have now seen the appeal of this type of vehicle.

To  a vehicle that I really liked a lot.

I'm somewhat sad to see the Navigator go, but it's a step forward in streamlining my hobby vehicle activities.

After my Wife and I got back from a trip up to Washington State, I took the Navigator out to get an oil change in preparation for the smog check. I also put about a quarter tank of fresh premium gas in. I always start using premium a bit before the smog test. The Nav breezed through the smog test, so I went home and took some new pictures, wrote, and posted the CL ad.

Now, I've heard that CL is old hat, but I've had good luck in the past, so I stick with what works. Even though they now charge five bucks for posting a vehicle ad!

There were three responses the same day I posted. However when I responded to the inquiries asking when they could see the car, all I got was crickets. 

I've sold lot's of cars and stuff on CL so I wasn't deterred. 

A couple of days later I received an inquiry and the potential buyer said he wanted to see the Navigator today, if possible. He sent the reply at 9:30 that morning but I didn't see it until almost 1:00 that afternoon. He had even included his phone number. So I called him right back. He told me that he lived at least a couple of hours away from San Jose in Pinole, but said that he could get off work early and meet me at 5:00 at my usual spot, the OSH parking lot a couple of miles from my house. 

I was sure to be there at least fifteen minutes early. I texted him when I arrived. And then I waited. And waited. I knew that traffic would be terrible coming down to San Jose, so I figured that I'd give him an extra half hour to arrive. Thirty minutes after that, I figured I'd give him another half hour. 

He didn't show, or even contact me. I'd expected a text. Well, that's about par for the course for potential CL buyers. I later found out that he'd sent an email to me using the CL link. I can't check my emails by phone so I didn't realize that he had contacted me.

I texted him that I'd gone home. I drove home and had dinner. I figured, "oh well" maybe I'll just keep the thing a little longer. After dinner I was relaxing when I received a text from the buyer. He said that he got tied up by "something" but that he was about twenty miles out, if I still wanted to show the car, but that it was my call. It was after 7:00 pm. but I texted him that I'd be there in fifteen minutes. 

My Wife accompanied me in a separate vehicle. It's always a good idea to have someone with you when you show a vehicle to an unknown person. It's also a good idea to meet that person away from your own residence. I have been lucky and have never had any problems, but we have all heard the horror stories, so it pays to be careful.

The buyer was waiting for me with his Wife, when I arrived. In a fairly late model Mercedes sedan.

He was a young guy in his late twenties, and he was excited when he saw the Navigator. That was a good sign.

He told me that he was a big fan of this model, in fact, he had a scale model of this style Navigator at home. He also told me that he'd been a fan of these vehicles ever since he was a kid, and saw a movie where Ice Cube drove a similar Navigator. 

He was obviously very interested and said that he was surprised and delighted that it looked as good as it did in the pictures.  My Navigator was indeed a nice car in good shape, The interior was in very good condition, especially considering it's age. I have really enjoyed driving this car. Everything pointed to the fact that this was a very serious buyer.

I'd had a similar serious buyer for the Riviera, who also lived a long way off. He checked out the car and wanted to buy it, right then. But I hadn't been able to find the pink slip, and told him that we could go to AAA to make the transfer, but the office was closed for the day. Maybe we could do it tomorrow or another day? But he didn't have the time for all that. He lived in Patterson, but worked in Sunnyvale. He had arrived with a second driver and really wanted to buy the car. It was my fault, I should have been certain that I located the pink slip before I even listed it. After this fiasco, I went to AAA and ordered a new pink, but I had lost the sale. 

Not only did I lose the sale, I lost 1,500 bucks. The buyer was ready to pay me 3,500 dollars that day. I finally did sell the Riviera a month later... for 2,000 bucks. A costly lesson in my failure to be prepared. This time I located the pink, and had the Navigator smogged before I submitted the ad.

However the potential Navigator buyer was pretty happy during the test drive and concentrated on listening to the driveline. He was satisfied with how it ran and drove, and said that he would buy it. Now it was time to talk money.

He made an initial offer that was too low in my eyes, but I liked that he was bargaining. It seems that many young people don't like to bargain over the price. As long as it's done in a respectful manner, I have no problem with haggling. I countered, and we came to an agreement; only one hundred bucks less than my counter. 3,400 bucks was good enough.

Now I was the happy one. Actually we were both satisfied with the transaction. You can't hope for any more than that. 

My Wife, who has always liked the Navigator, said that I should have held out for my price. I told her that my priority was selling the car. I wanted the driveway space, the money was a secondary consideration. When you have a serious buyer for your old car, you've got to be realistic, they don't come around that often or easily.  Especially for a car with limited appeal to buyers. I wasn't selling a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla. While the Navigator was very nice, it was also an almost twenty year old big SUV that got less than 20 mpg. on the freeway. 

The only people that would be considering buying it would be someone who needs the size and utility of a vehicle like this, or someone like me, that really wanted that specific vehicle. 

I really enjoyed my time with the Navigator. I had driven it on a long vacation to Oregon, and many other weekend trips. I used it to tow a large trailer to help move my Daughter move out of her apartment. It was also the vehicle that I used to buy and tow my '46 Plymouth home earlier this year from Southern California. 

These big SUVs are great for towing.

Good Times in Oregon.

I had satisfied my curiosity about luxury SUVs; they are extremely comfortable and very useful. Now I know why people buy them. They can do so many things so well, and make you feel pretty darn good while they do them. You can't ask for more than that from any vehicle. If you can afford the vehicle, the gas and other expenses, you can enjoy luxurious and surprisingly useful transportation. These vehicles remind me of the large Cadillacs and Lincolns of the 1950's and '60's. They are quite impressive looking with a lot of presence, certainly a prestige vehicle, but they are much more efficient than those older cars ever were.  

While I was never going to buy one new, these SUVs can make a great purchase as a used vehicle. I plan to buy another Lincoln SUV in the future, though it will probably be a smaller model. However I'm not in any hurry to do so.

The important thing is that I now have an open spot in my driveway. That was the whole point of this exercise. Mission accomplished.