It's fine for buying a couch for $35 or getting a job through their help wanted ads, but anything larger than that immediately falls under the category of "Questionable".
So when Nicole asked me yesterday if I wanted to check out a car she found on craigslist, I had my apprehensions. Understandably, I think. But, I have a car, and she needed a ride over to where this car was. That and I had absolutely zero plans that afternoon, so I may as well make my life interesting. Though Lynette the GPS overshot the house a little bit, it wasn't too hard to get there; Nicole recognized the car from the ad anyway.
She was checking out a 1997 Ford Thunderbird. Now- Nicole and I know almost nothing about cars. She knows they have belts and cylinders and I know they have wheels and brakes. We are by no means the best candidates to drive ourselves to some guy's house and attempt to buy a car without a lot more prior knowledge.
It has just been inspected and was inspected until July; the guy who owned the car had just installed new rear brakes, and he had a garage full of other vehicles - it was clear he was a mechanic of some sort. We couldn't think of anything else useful to ask besides winter driving, gas mileage, and we stared blankly under the hood. The car also didn't have plates or a passenger's side door handle. The guy took us on a ride down the street and back.
We went to Franz (my car) to mull it over. There was someone coming at 4:00 who was also thinking about buying it.
Heather: I don't think you should buy this car.
Nicole: I think I'm going to buy this car.
Heather: Okay.
And with that we drove to a bank.
It was nerve-wracking. I was nervous about the whole craigslist factor; Nicole was nervous because this would be her first car ever! Finally we got ahold of someone who knows more than we do about cars (though, to be fair, that doesn't take much) and they agreed this was a good idea - a good deal too - and we felt better about it. So she bought a (hot!) '97 Thunderbird which we named Bruno. It was $900.
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