So, drove the car home last night, then drove it around a bit this afternoon, and finally realized that the reason my respiratory tract seemed to sieze up when I had the top up was because the car was suffused with old cigarette smoke.
You see, my nose is not the greatest for detecting subtle odors, or even certain types of unsubtle oders, but it’s whiz-bang at detecting substances that irritate it. If I sit in the car for a while, eventually I can actually make out the stale cigarette odor.
Luckily, this does not appear to be a problem.
You see, CarMax has a 5-day, no-questions-asked policy on returns. So I called them, and we drove out there, and I allowed as how the car was great except for this–and it is–so although I really didn’t want this one, perhaps we could look at pulling another similar car from somewhere else?
Turns out there’s one in Norcross, GA, same year, though, in fact, the slightly spiffier model (power windows, door-locks, tan leather, which is both a nicer color combination than green and black–in fact, I think tan interiors with dark green or burgundy are the only colors convertibles should come in–but, as Chet pointed out in AIM, it’s not nearly as hot in the summar) that is now wending its way here.
Unless there’s some gross defect, I suspect I’ll be taking that one, and although we will no doubt have to sign forty-leven *more* pieces of paper–makes me wish we’d just written a check off our home equity line of credit–this is about a zillion times easier than I expected.
I don’t know; on the one hand, going to CarMax seemed like something of an admission of defeat–I wasn’t having any success tracking down a car I wanted the hard way, and the one traditional dealership we went to wanting to seriously look at a car last weekend left us with a horrible loathing–and a betrayal of my usual desire to “buy local”. But at the same time, they seem deeply committed to customer satisfaction.
Obviously, it’s not over yet, but no doubt you’ll all hear how it goes, assuming we’re not wiped off the face of the earth tomorrow or the next day.
