.. living every day ...

every day of life .. is full of life .. lets see .. how many such days i can live up to :) !!

Saturday, April 01, 2006

finally in the driver's seat


aaja meri gaadi mein baith jaa
long drive jayenge, full speed jayenge...

or

main nikla, gaddi leke
o raste mein, o sadak pe,
ek mod aaya ...

Finally I am a car owner, and its exciting for now. However getting my first car was quite an experience. I had a simple not-asking-god-for-too-much wish to land me the right car for the right price; and I got the wrong exit it seems. There was this 99'accord that caught my attention, low miles on the car, good looking, nice condition. So i decided to test drive it (that reminds me of my previous attempts at test-driving a car; the girl in first instance set the meeting time to 5pm, then i was confirming at 4;50 and she suggested postponing it to 6pm; i agreed n waited for her till 6;15 never to see or hear from her. ditto with my second attempt) .. and was glad to be able to test drive a car finally.
The car was driving pretty well, and I kept asking the owner, what else you know about the car. Basically i know nothing about this, and wanted to know from the seller what i should know about the car before buying. He looked like an honest and ignorant guy like me, so i concluded its a good deal and car is in good condition. Bargained with him (its in my blood, though the bargaining gene is not expressed in my dna) and finally struck the deal.

As it turned out, i had the keys, but could not start the car. The car was loaned from some stupid financial company, and the pay-off was to come from what i pay. The financial company takes 10-14 business days to process the final pay-off and send back the title. I am yet to understand what takes so long .. but anyways i waited and got the title. Now the title needs to be signed off by the owner, before i can get the car registered in my name. But it was spring break, and the owner was of course enjoying his vacation at some beach in Florida.

So another week goes by and after many phone calls, voice mails, and emails, i get the sign and head off to the license branch.

License Officer: Sir, can you please step out and meet me by your car
me: sure (sweating, why the hell !!)
LO: i will read out the VIN no. (something to uniquely identify cars in US) from the car, and you check with the one on title paper
me: they dont match (dark clouds is all i see, but manage to get my wits together and confirm that the nos. dont match)
LO: sir, i wont be reporting you to police, but you can call them if you feel unsafe (me-wats going on). You need to bring here the right car, or the right title

(the LO for license officer is so close to LOL)
so i never noticed that the stupid financial company took 10-14 biz days of processing to send the wrong title .. for some 02'accord.

another week goes by and i finally got the right title .... and got my car registered.

Phew!!! yes i am a car owner .. and excited about that .. just a few more things to take care of .. changing tyres, changing oil, changing brake pads, changing battery, getting mats, fixing the plate

Its so much fun ... aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja...

2 Comments:

At 11:40, Blogger Vas said...

Buying car is like finding your soulmate.. itna to karna padega na :P

 
At 14:32, Anonymous Anonymous said...

good blog; finally found it through ur "about me" link on orkut.
remember months ago u had asked whether i started blogging? (when blogs had just begun to be a fashion) and u refused to give the id under which u blog...


guess theres a time for everything and everything has its way of coming to the fore!!!

have a good week ahead
lallu

 

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