Let me begin by noting how incredibly nerve-wracking it feels when it’s time for one of those really big purchases, which describes how I finished out 2023. My faithful and much-loved 2010 Volkswagen CC (pictured above, a couple of days after I bought it in late 2009), now clocking in at just over a quarter million miles, had begun showing its age with more than its outdated appearance. With work travel, it had become occasionally temperamental and I knew it was time to think about a replacement before it required a major repair that could make very little sense given how long in the tooth it has grown.
I started my research at the beginning of November and included a fairly wide range of vehicle brands, although I saw that Volvo and Genesis could be eliminated pretty quickly given the pricey cars they have to offer! Between reliability ratings and customer satisfaction surveys, it wasn’t hard to rule out several more of the manufacturers. And after three Volkswagens in a row, I might have hoped something in their lineup might catch my eye, but I came up with naught...and I’m well aware of how expensive they can be to maintain. In the end, it was clear that the Toyota Camry was far and away the top choice. Although I’ve pined away for a Honda Accord since I was 16 years old, it wasn’t even a runner-up.
Once I did my deep dive into the Camry, its features, and the various options, I ended up with four key criteria that were, for me, non-negotiable. With Edmund’s and Cars.com and Kelly Blue Book and Consumer Reports as my resources (and finding Carmax and Carvana unenticing and expensive), I started reaching out to Toyota dealers, with my clear “musts” for what I’d be willing to even talk about. Six dealers from Rock Hill, SC, to Danville, VA, were quick to begin emailing boilerplate messages and calling repeatedly...even though none of them had the car that I wanted.
For instance, after so long with a car whose exterior color was ‘meh’ from the get-go, I wasn’t interested in one of the prevalent and preferred exteriors that the modern public seems to demand. Perhaps I elevated that consideration higher in the priorities than was necessary, but on this I was firm. I also decided it needed to be a looker in other ways, even if driven by a hunched-over old man with thinning grey hair. I especially wanted the most up-to-date safety features in a high-quality reliable car that would be comfortable for the less-frequent travel I still undertake.
And a hybrid: I was ready for the high mileage of a well-regarded hybrid. So here is the new vehicle for the Roediger House: a 2024 Toyota Camry Hybrid XSE, a bit over-loaded with a too-long list of added features and various extravagances that were the extra cost of getting the right match to my key criteria. Given what I wanted in the color and trim I preferred, I had to track it down myself, in Lexington, KY.
At the risk of sounding a tad dramatic, it really did turn out to be the true story of a needle in an enormous haystack, with the added tension that it was apparently the only needle in current existence. The four criteria I arrived at on my “must” list were present in only one car in the entire country, as best I could determine.
Trust me: I searched far and wide. The roller coaster of working out a deal in the mad rush of the dealer’s year-end push when you’re three states away and you can’t get there to help with their 12/31 deadline and hoping it doesn’t sell in the meantime and waiting through the holiday...I was happy and relieved and all the more certain of the choice once the pieces fell officially and certainly into place that first Tuesday of the new year.
On January 3rd, with a one-way rental car and a cashier’s check from the bank, I made the six-hour drive to Green’s Toyota of Lexington and returned with this beauty.
Toyota can certainly call it “Cavalry Blue” if it wishes, but in this household it shall henceforth and forever be termed “Carolina Blue.” Might it be a bit garish, given that what dominates the automotive world these days is that limited but clearly popular palette of white, black, grey, and silver?
Maybe that is precisely the point. The photo above is from a recent day at the Roediger House, which captured that limited color palate in stark fashion, methinks.
This counts as the second entirely-online car purchase negotiation I’ve made in my life, with the other an email-only transaction while I was teaching a course for the University of Virginia at their Richmond Center, all the way back in 2002. I might have been a distracted instructor that time, while the sales guy in Raleigh went back and forth with me till we arrived at an agreeable price. This most recent purchase was not so very terrible, even though the dealer temporarily backed out of the deal we’d made, in hopes they could notch a sale before that magical December 31st date. I’m glad they couldn’t move it that weekend, and now it’s here to move me in safety, comfort, and style. And with quite a few bells and a generous supply of whistles.
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