A Little Civic Discourse

Today is my first anniversary of being the owner of Kevmobile 1.2, and I have to say, the little green 1996 Honda Civic has served me well so far.

I won't re-tell the story of the original Kevmobile here, since it's available on my other website, but suffice it to say I was shocked a year ago when my beloved '91 Acura Integra (with 338,000 miles on it!) failed the new emissions inspection and left me with less than two weeks to get it off the road. I knew that, at that time and on such short notice, I was not going to be able to afford the RSX that will ultimately become Kevmobile 2.0, but I had to have something...so it was off to Carmax (with whom I was very satisfied, by the way) to see what I could afford.

Of course, I ended up choosing the car at the very top of my price list. I just decided that 1) I wanted to stay in the Honda family because my Acura had been so amazingly reliable, and 2) I wanted something that actually looked cool, that I wouldn't be ashamed to be seen in (unlike the purple Saturn that was nearby on the lot...ack!). So I tied myself down to the very first car payments of my entire life (my previous cars were HS/college graduation presents) and went for it. The test drive was great, I was able to use the old Kevmobile as a downpayment (basically because it had a CD player in it, I think), and I didn't have to pay anything for three months. I was set. (The only downside was, if you look at "Today in Sports History" from a year ago, I missed Emmitt Smith's record-setting run--even on the radio--while I was doing the car deal. It's not like they didn't replay it a zillion times down here, but still, I was sorry to not see it as it happened.)

So looking back a year later, I have to say that, as a "holdover" car, this one's been great. The only problem I've had with it so far was...about thirty minutes after I bought it (d'oh). I was taking my "celebration cruise" through Frisco and stopped to get some money from an ATM, and the window wouldn't roll all the way back up...right as it started to drizzle. I'm thinking, great, my first experience with power windows and this is what i get. The service department wasn't open on Sunday, but they fixed it the next day (for free, of course), giving me a loaner for the day...and that's it, no other problems since then. I've taken it from 74,000 miles a year ago to 97,000 today, and I figure that, if I can get another good year or so out of it, I'll be ready to start looking for the RSX in early '05.

(UPDATE FROM EARLY '05: Nah, gonna wait a bit longer. It gets paid off at the end of December, so I want to enjoy at least a little while with no car payment; maybe I'll use that extra money to save up for Kevmobile 2.0 a little later.)