Element Chronicles: Part 1
So as spilled in an earlier post, we're looking at getting an Element. In particular, we've found a 2003 green 4WD EX OMG LOL that's in our price range. The only thing it doesn't have is keyless entry, which I can install myself. The nice things that the car has include the sunroof for the rear folks, an aux jack for the iPod (thank goodness), power everything, ABS, and respectably low mileage - just a shade over 30k.
This past weekend we drive four different Elements. The first was an orange (!) 03, and we liked it, but the Carfax later showed that the thing had been "serviced" a few too many times. We then drove three more at a nearby Honda dealer - versus the orange, which was farther away. Two were blue and one was silver with blue plastic panels. (Odd.)
The funny/sad thing is that between the trio of Elements, none had the exact feature set we wanted. The closest was the first one we tried, a blue 03, which had no keyless. Everything else was there, but the price was about $2k more than the green one we're kind of pining after.
We drove a silver one, though, and whoo boy, something was odd. Neither Jeani nor I can explain it: the car just had bad vibes. The interior plastic was a little more scratched up, and the brakes were like sponge cake. I'm serious. I think stepping on sponge cake has a better chance of stopping that particular car. (Maybe shortcake.)
Then, one more blue one, this one with remote start. I got into the car to drive it and instinctively put my hand on the door panel to adjust the mirrors.
Me: "Uh... this doesn't have power mirrors?"
Salesguy: "Sure it does... it should..."
Me: "Yeah, well, the controls... aren't there!"
The weird weird thing is that it didn't even have joystick controls - no sir. This was stick-your-arm-out-the-window mirror time! Ugh. Awful. Sorry. Hard to swallow. And the remote start... visions of Honda dealers telling me the warranty was voided were dancing through my head. In the end, the blue one felt like a base model that someone modestly pimped out.
Unfortunately we didn't get a car Saturday. We tried. But you can't buy a car solely on emotion and, the fact that there were weird features missing on each one made us gunshy.
However, if the green one is sold and we don't like a Jetta wagon we're expecting to look at on Friday, the first blue one is a suitable backup.
