Jill and I have been looking for new cars for about a month now. We wanted a Beetle, since they’re good on gas and cute. They also come with standard transmissions, which was a requirement. Since we were looking to be thrifty, we almost bought a $5,300 PT Cruiser last night after testing it out, but the gas mileage and handling just wasn’t that great.
Today we bought a 2000 Beetle GLX for $8,000.
It was more than we were planning on spending, but it only had 50,000 miles on it and tons of extras. When it came out, the GLX was quite the luxury car – a top-of-the-line Beetle (compared to the GL and GLS models, it was the most expensive). Heated seats, nice speakers, automatic sunroof, cruise control, a turbo 2.0L engine with 150 HP, alloy wheels, power windows and doors, tinted windows, leather seats, etc. So we splurged a little bit, but it will hopefully last a long time and is quite nice to drive.
One hitch is that Jill has never driven a standard transmission. We will soon remedy that. Just hours after we bought it, we drove to a big parking lot and I taught the basics. She caught on fast and is now mostly comfortable with first and second gear.
As far as I could tell, this car was a good deal. The guy who sold it to us was a private owner, friendly and a long-time police officer. The $8,000 was in keeping with the blue book value, even on the low side. It has a clean Carfax and clean titles. I did not have it checked out by a mechanic. Perhaps I should have, but we were excited and the owner lived about 40 minutes away.
I gotta say, the car is quite powerful. Well, compared to my 1995 Ford Escort, anything is… but it seems almost too powerful. Going the speed limit, already quite hard near Boston, just got a lot harder. Fortunately the car has cruise control. It accelerates quickly and with the standard transmission and turbo engine just blows most cars out of the water. I didn’t set out to buy a powerful luxury car, but Jill and I thought splurging a little couldn’t hurt. Normally we are very conservative spenders and decent savers, but as I said, it will hopefully last a long time and be fun to drive in the process.
It’s also good on gas mileage! Here’s some pictures of our new Beetle:
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