This is my new car. A Kia Forte 5-Door.
At my absolute wit’s end, I finally decided to cut my losses, and ditch the lemon. I had an elaborate plan with a minimal window of time to accomplish it, and in a perfect world it would have gone completely as planned, but since we don’t live in a perfect world, this would have to do. The bottom line is that I have successfully unloaded the fucking lemon, I don’t drive it anymore, and no longer will it give me stress about how much it mechanically sucks, or what no-longer produced parts need to be replaced.
I’m ecstatic that I have a brand new car, that theoretically, I will not really have to worry about (knock on wood) for a little bit, but I’m actually simply more relieved that I just don’t have the lemon anymore.
After discovering that one of the catalytic converters on the lemon was going bad, and required at least $1,500 in order to repair, I boldly fumed that I wanted a new car. Most of the time, most people chalk such reactions as moments of rage, or spontaneous choices, but I legitimately had had enough with the constant problems and deteriorating state of the lemon. I still owed close to $4,400 on my loan for the piece of shit, but no part of me wanted to make it almost $6,000, with the cost of repair, not to mention the 20 other problems that would likely arise in remaining length of the loan. Regardless of the negative equity, it became crystal apparent that I had to get rid of the lemon, ASAP.
Time, was not on my side in this endeavor. Not only did I not want to pay the $1,500 to repair the catalytic converter, I didn’t want to pay the renewal of the tag for the lemon, renewal of the insurance policy for the lemon, and frankly, I didn’t want to pay another month’s payment on my car loan on the fucking lemon. Quickly, I realized the situation I was in, and that I did not have a lot of cash fluidity to be really picky with what I needed in a new car, since there was the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to unload the lemon for at least what was left to pay on it. Fortunately, I’m a fairly simple person, and not really that into extravagant luxury or the necessity for a $60,000 piece of shit BMW, so regardless, my options were still limited to fairly small, entry-level vehicles.
I spent last week researching vehicles, and came up with five options. I spent the last Saturday, bouncing around several car dealerships, actually test driving all options, which was a mistake I made the last time I was car shopping, not testing all options, and ended up with the fucking lemon. The choice became very clear after weighing cost, bang for buck, included options, quality, and overall gut feeling of each of the cars. Since I knew what I wanted, I went straight to work playing the numbers game, getting estimates from dealerships from all around the Metro Atlanta area, as well as one on the outskirts of Charlotte, North Carolina, that happened to have one at an extremely attractive price.
After a few days of getting various dealerships to fight and bid for my business, I got to a number that I found adequate enough to pursue, and then I fought just a little bit extra to make it even a little lower. With the purchase price established, there were still two remaining variables in the equation – unloading the lemon, and hoping that my credit score was good enough to get into the neighborhood of monthly payments that I could feasibly afford.
Kelley Blue Book gave me the rough estimate that my car would be able to probably net $5,300 if traded in, but the general consensus from various dealerships were very contrary to those figures. Regardless, I stated that if my car could genuinely net $5,000 at all, that I would shit my pants. I saw a golden opportunity for myself to actually profit from unloading the lemon, and with the profit that I could theoretically make, could easily then pay off the remaining balance on my credit card, and put myself in an absolutely awesome position, with a new car, and zeroed out credit card. It’s a good thing I didn’t hold my breath, though.
I did a good job of tricking the car into resetting the check engine light, which put the lemon in a better position to appraise higher, since the most obvious of mechanical flaws would suddenly be undetectable without the sophisticated procedure of air and flow testing, which is beyond what CarMaxes do to appraise their vehicles. Long story short, the lemon appraised for $4,000 flat, roughly $400 less than what I needed it to appraise to. In other words, if I took the offer, I’d have to pay the remaining balance right there and then.
I thought about it very hard, and frankly, I simply didn’t feel like exerting any more effort on the fucking lemon, and having to fight yet one more battle, trying to get any dealer to take it off my hands before buying their car, so needless to say, I took the offer, and paid the remaining balance out of my own pocket. To this point, $400 seems like a fair cost to free myself from that piece of shit, but it still kind of sucks that it kind of got the last laugh in our tumultuous relationship. So not only did it not pay itself off, I still have a balance on my credit card, and lost a little bit of my own money in the process. But whatever, I look back at yesterday, and feel simply relieved that I’m now finally free from that piece of shit lemon.
It took a little longer than I had hoped, but I purchased the car that I had decided on. I’ll be the first to admit that I was at first extremely skeptical about purchasing a Kia, considering the once diminutive Korean company has more or less been considered the dregs of the automotive world for a little while. But much has changed throughout the years, with the rapidly-improving and growing Hyundai corporation engulfing them, and subsequently improving their product in the process. Reputation and perception aside, the most important thing was the test drive, and quite frankly, Kia blew the competitors out of the water.
I don’t feel that I have to justify myself to anyone for my purchase, but this part bears repeating:
| MSRP | HP/Torque | MPG | Felt Cheap | Bang for Buck | |
| Kia Forte | $22,200* | 174/168 | 22/32 | No | Immense |
| Honda Civic | $21,500 | 140/128 | 26/34 | 50/50 | Grotesque |
| Ford Fiesta | $20,000 | 120/112 | 28/37 | Immensely | Hideous |
| Hyundai Elantra | $18,500 | 148/131 | 29/40 | A little bit | It’s okay |
*NOT what I actually paid
In terms of the important gas mileage, it loses out some. But considering the lemon regularly got 24-26 mpg highway, I know I’m going to be fine. In terms of sanity (power), the Forte is a perfect transition from the 225hp V6 of the lemon, since it most certainly still does scoot in its own right.
One thing I can’t stress enough is the simple sheer amount of cool shit that the Kia has included that none of the other. I can’t really describe the feeling of suddenly having all this extraneous shit that I didn’t think I’d really care/need/want in a car that my little new Kia has. Bluetooth for my phone, built-in aux/USB jacks, and a Sirius-ready stereo. The Civic doesn’t include such, at least not without taking the cost up exponentially. The Ford had it in there, but driving a car with so little power would have made me slit my wrists, and I’d probably bleed out faster than it could redline. The in-dash technology now has shit like fuel economy, estimate mileage left per tank, and other oddly efficient meters that none of my prior cars have ever had.
But the biggest dynamic change for me in this car would be the fact that this car has six gears. Seriously, one of the criteria I had last year when I was looking for a new car was that I wanted more power, and if possible, six gears. I hated cruising on the highway at 80 mph, with the tach glued to 3,500 rpm, and preferred it if were up another gear, and maybe down to 3,000 or below. In my pursuit, I eventually forfeited the sixth gear, and ended up getting saddled with the lemon, because it had power. I look back at last January when I was looking for new cars, and wonder why I didn’t buy this last year? In hindsight this decision really fucking sucks, because then right now, I wouldn’t have endured the lemon, and I’d be 15 months into paying off this car instead.
Back to the six gears though, it’s going to take a little adaptation on my part to get used to. Downshifting to fifth isn’t really purposeful, but it’s shaking the feeling that I’m going 4th-3rd, because I’m pushing the stick upward is a little odd of a sensation, and hopefully I won’t get into a catastrophic wreck when downshifting 6th-4th instead in the future. Also, the clutch on the Kia (and the Ford) requires about as much force as squeezing a marshmallow to depress it. Seriously, after test-driving cars last weekend, and then getting back into the lemon, which required the strength to squat-press Mark Henry to depress the clutch, I honestly thought the lemon was (even more) broken.
In conclusion, I’m really fucking glad to be rid of the lemon. I’m also excited about the idea of my new car. I will gladly be one of the risk takers of the time to dive head-first into a Kia ownership, and hope that someday, I’ll be one of the pioneers for when Kias aren’t the bottom of the automotive world, but instead are more respected, and slightly more expensive, and maybe some haji company is the laughing stock instead. And I’m really really hoping, that my car woes will be just a little less frequent over the course of the next year, than they’ve been for me throughout the last 15 months.
