Maybe you have a partner in life like our Mercedes Streeter’s, a spouse who tells you to go ahead and buy whatever cars you’ve ever dreamed of, and we’ll adjust the finances and living arrangements accordingly. Now let’s be honest: you don’t.
No, your better half probably looks at cars the way you look at a laptop, washing machine, or a refrigerator. You want a good one, but it doesn’t have to be a fancy brand or the top of the line, just a good value and reliable. For cars, that means one or two decent ones, but nothing outrageous or silly. You’re going to have to fight for what you want in this relationship, and in many cases you’re better off not fighting that hard. What cars does your life partner want to get that you’re, well, not totally on board with?
I know your situation. As a car guy, you strike up a conversation about some crazy, obscure crap like a Delta Integrales or Merkur, and the person you’re talking to eventually asks the dreaded question: what do you drive? That’s when you have to hunker down and admit that, well, we looked at a lot of cars, but we (yeah, we, right) decided to get a Honda Pilot or Toyota Venza or some other such car that immediately sinks your cred.
In our house, my spouse almost intentionally wants to spend money on a car without a “brand name” rather than one that’s “too ostentatious.” Basically, no car that’s the equivalent of a Louis Vuitton purse (which I usually assume is a fake until proven otherwise). On the other hand, I look for stupid bang-for-buck; I determine the car I really want and then figure out how crappy of an example of this dream machine I can afford (and afford to keep running). That’s how I’ve ended up buying stuff like decade-old Mercedes-Benz S-Classes with moon-shot odometer readings.
Since getting married, however, something like, say, a 200,000-mile Bentley Continental has not been in the cards. We occasionally find common ground, but even that doesn’t work. She really wanted a GM-era Saab 9-3 back in the early 2000s; a perfect showy-without-being-showy car that I was reluctant to buy. Don’t get me wrong; I liked these, too, but balked at buying one since I thought it was going to be a pain in the ass to own.
We did buy, and it turned out to be a pain in the ass to own. I don’t remember the straw that broke the camel’s back, but we both sort of gave up a few years later. The solution was to sell our souls to the devil and trade it (at great expense) for a same-year used Lexus. We’ve now had one of these never-open-the-hood brand of vehicles ever since; a grand whopping total of two Lexii over these last two decades, a rare case of getting what you pay for.
Neither of us is in love with these things. That’s a pure compromise right there, where neither party is completely happy but we’re all content.
How about you? What car does your partner want (or you ended up buying) that you hated the idea of getting and despise the fact that you’re making payments on it right now? Let us know now in this safe space; your partner doesn’t give a sh*t about cars and doesn’t read this site, anyway.
Top graphic image: Saab via NetCarShow
My wife is pretty good about cars. She might see one she wants but always logical. She is also afraid to drive bigger cars. That can be interesting sometimes. She sort of wanted a Lexus but was always fine with a Toyota. She loved a leaf I got and wanted a new one in blue. So no big deal. She was impressed with the price on a delivery mile used. She is sort of interested in a vinfast. She has some friends with them. I’m not sure but if I can get a deal maybe.
My daughter has to have a Forester that turned into a headache. It was never right but the dealers would just gaslight you on warranty repairs saying nothing was wrong but you could see they had tried to do something. Horrible experience. But she has a Subaru branded Toyota ev now so it’s all fine.
I’m just happy I broke my wife of her serial Jeep habit. Two WJs followed by a WK2. The WJs weren’t bad, but the WK2 cost me $1k in parts every year for the six years we had it! Now, that includes wear/tear items like tires and brakes but it also includes driveshafts (non-serviceable u-joints failed), wheel bearings, cruse control switches and door hinges that should have lasted longer than they did. I’m just happy that we unloaded that thing before a lifter failed and I needed to replace the camshaft. Keeping that Grand Cherokee on the road in top condition was time consuming, and we only had it from 60k to 100k miles!
I got the wife a 2021 BMW 330e xDrive PHEV in 2023. I had gone to the dealer to look an an i3, but they had sold it but had just gotten the 330e in as a lease return with like 13,000 miles on it. She has a really short commute, so the electric works great rather than using a gas engine that won’t even get to operating temp otherwise. But now she loves it so much that she says she only wants BMW’s from now on. (She probably would have hated the i3, so it was probably a blessing that they had sold it) I usually dump my EV’s and PHEV before the 8 year warranty is up on the batteries, but the restriction on only BMW is going to limit choices. But I also don’t know that I want to keep a BMW past the 8 year mark. We’ll see. I have another 3 years or so. I want to get her into something full electric next time too, but that will take some convincing. It’s been a good car, other than tearing through tires. The OEM’s lasted about 17,000. The Michelins I put on it look like I might get 25,000 out of them.
Lotus Elise. She really wants one, and I already have an MGF, which already causes all the trouble you would expect from a midship-mounted Rover K series engine without the additional chance of totalling the car with a ding anywhere forward of the steering wheel.