Garrett counted the money twice on the hood of the van before we walked up to the porch. Sixty-four hundred-dollar bills in a bank envelope, $2,300 of it his, mowed one lawn at a time over three summers. His hands were steadier than mine. Saturday, December 6, about 10:30 in the morning, Savannah, Missouri, twenty degrees and bright.
We bought a 2012 Honda Civic LX. Blue, four doors, the 1.8 with the automatic, 142,000 miles. The sellers were a retired couple who'd owned it since 2015 and were down to one car now that neither of them drives much. Here is how it went and what it cost.
It was a plain online listing, two photos and three sentences, which is the kind I've learned to like. Asking $6,900. Because Savannah is fifteen minutes from my dad's place, I asked Dad to drive past and take a look before we made the trip. His report, in full: "Clean. Garage kept. They're nice. Bring the boy." From a retired lineman, that's a glowing review.
What we checked
After the Corolla in November, we weren't skipping anything. The first visit, the Saturday before, was our own once-over:
- Title in hand, in the seller's name, no lien listed
- Folder of records: oil changes roughly every 5,000 miles, tires two years old, a battery from 2023
- Cold start, no smoke, no ticking, idle smooth
- Every light, window, lock and the heat, which on a 20-degree morning was the thing Garrett cared about most
- Rust check at the rocker panels and rear wheel wells: surface only
- A test drive on US-169 with Garrett at the wheel and me in the passenger seat on his permit
Then the pre-purchase inspection. The husband drove it to our shop on the south side himself on Wednesday, which told me plenty. $125 again. The sheet came back mostly clean: no leaks, no codes, transmission fluid not burnt, and the 1.8 runs a timing chain, so there was no belt due. The two findings were front struts that were tired and leaking a little, and rear brakes with some life left but not a lot. The shop's rough number on struts and an alignment was $850 to $950. Nothing urgent, nothing unsafe that day.
What we negotiated
I am not a good haggler. Tina is, but she was working, and December is a long month at a flower shop. So I did what she told me to do the night before: show them the inspection sheet, say the number once, and then stop talking.
I told them the struts would be close to $900 and that we'd like to be at $6,200. The husband said he'd figured the struts were "getting soft" and offered $6,500. His wife said, "Oh, make it sixty-four, he's a nice young man." So that's how the deal got made. Garrett being polite on the first visit was worth $100.
Every dollar
The price was $6,400 cash. Garrett's share was $2,300, every dollar of his mowing money. Our share was $4,100, a hundred under the $4,200 ceiling we set in July. The $125 inspection was on us. Title, sales tax and plates are still to come at the license office.
Before we drove away I called our agent and added the car to the policy with liability, comprehensive and the roadside add-on. We skipped collision on a $6,400 car. Our six-month premium went from $1,092 to $1,240. That's before Garrett is licensed and rated, and our agent was clear that number is coming in February.
We did the paperwork on the dining room table: the sellers signed the title over to us, filled in the odometer reading, and we wrote out a simple bill of sale with the date, price, VIN and everybody's signatures, two copies. They took their plates off, which is how it works in Missouri; the plates stay with the seller. We drove it home on the temporary paperwork with Garrett behind the wheel and me in the passenger seat, Dad following in his car because he wanted to, and Tina meeting us in the driveway with her phone out.
Watching him back it into our driveway, slowly, three tries, I had a feeling I'm not going to describe on a car blog. Then I went and got the drain pan, because the first-weekend checklist starts next Saturday.