Chose a different car?

I dont know about the price, but you shoudl never re-paint a car if you dont have to. It KILLS the resale.

 

not being picky about color makes a huge difference. i told my dealer i wanted silver #6. 3 weeks later i got worried about all the long waits i was seeing on priuschat so i called the dealer and told him i would take any color except white or black. he called me 3 days later with a salsa #5. i took it. i think the fact that i was fresh in his memory and was flexible got me the car. he told me that the car was on the lot when he called me and he had two different people approach him in the half hour after he called me to ask for the red prius on the lot.

when i went in to pick up my car, all the dealers looked jealous and one told me that she'd begged one of her customers to take it. she said that particular customer insisted on white #9 and would probably never get it as a 2004.

it is also my first new car. i am 22 and paying for it with money from my first out of college job. actually, i had expected to wait much longer and have more time to save up for it so i ended up borrowing money from my father for the downpayment!

 

i think it costs $500 to repaint a car. i considered doing that until i saw how beatiful the red is.

 

I like to think my life is more valuable than Salsa Red Pearl. Pretty sure yours is too. :wink:

Seriously, though, I called my Toyota dealership when I signed up for the white #7 that was available (second to last) about painting. Now yeah, you can take the car to Maaco and have it painted for $500 or so, but I can guarantee you it won't last. Toyota has one of the best paint jobs you can get, and they'll repaint the car for you if you want, but they quoted me $3,000. (I guess they strip down to the primer, take the doors off and all that - it's a much more thorough job, and it's the reliable Toyota paint job, but don't know if it's worth 3K.)

 

Wow, you're a lot more tactful than I would've been...

When I was in high school, I got a $600 used piece of crap ('77 Ford LTD), and I was one of only a few people I knew who even drove to school.

Now I'm listening to a 17-year-old complain that he NEEDS a DVD Nav system and bluetooth in his new $30k car. And god forbid it should be an unacceptable color. My heart bleeds, really.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to work so I can earn money to pay for stuff.

(On a side note, I had two panels repainted on my previous car, a grey Focus, and the Maaco paint job was perfect, at least for the subsequent 3 years until it got totalled)

 

Like you, I hate the colour white. Despite this, I've had four white cars, including the Prius I'm now driving. The sun still rises and sets, and the seasons still change. The car still performs as designed as well.

I'll jump on the bandwagon as well. You don't NEED any of that stuff. My frist car was a 1965 Pontiac Bonneville. I paid $150 for it, and it still drove me to and from school and work. Even at that, the old beater was still a luxury for me, as I lived a whopping mile from both at the time. I was more often, on a bicycle between the two places, thanx both to my hatred of high school, and rules set by my folks to be allowed to drive a car.

 

Ok, I'll get in here too, Pete, but not quite in the same way.

When we want something really badly it can seem like a *need* when, as Evan so gently pointed out, it is really a *want*, not a need.

That said, I feel for you my young friend because I was 17 once, too, and if I remember correctly almost everything seemed like a *need* at that time. It was only as the years piled up that the wisdom so casually imparted by the guys above dawned ever so subtlely, making me realise how much things change as we move along this path.

So, as much as I know you want a black car, and I'm with ya there man, others can be just as ok. I've owned green, blue, white, gold, and, of course, rust-colored cars. They all were exactly what you'd expect when you come down to it: Transportation from A to B.

Peace, and hang in there, it will be worth it

 

:idea: In other words... it'll be special to you, because it'll be yours. No matter what it is.

(And no, I'm not going to make take this further re: it being "your first". If you give the car a female name, that's up to you.)

 

Painting:

http://priuschat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=9965#9965

 

Okay, I'm jumping on this bandwagon now.

My first car was a '87 Chevrolet Cavalier VL (Value Leader) which I purchased myself in 1991. The VL part meant "stupid cheap" which translates into "lots of hard plastic and absolutely no options". Power steering? Nope. Rear Defroster? Nope. GPS? ha.

Despite all that, it managed to get me through college and through a few years at my first job. I ended up putting 130K miles on it in 7 years, and it was still running at the end. (BTW -- Still running after 130K miles was something of an acomplishment for a late 80s cavalier)

I guess my needs were different. I wouldn't have died if it was white (it was, but any color would have been fine), and I didn't *need* GPS or Bluetooth. I guess I just wasn't *that* spoiled or bratty.

I guess if you're 17 and your parents are willing to buy you a car like the Prius, great. I think you're definetly missing out by not learning how to take care of yourself.

 

Patience, young grasshopper.

 

...and be grateful. If you're in line for cars like this at 17, IMHO you don't know how good you have it.

 

I recall window-shopping with my sister one day. We saw a huge big-screen TV and she said, "I need one of those." My sister's apartment was not big enough to allow her to sit far enough back to properly enjoy it, but that didn't matter. I replied, "You don't need it, you want it." She looked at me with an expression like a lioness whose cubs have not eaten for a week, and replied, "No. I NEED it!" I guess sometimes frivolous desires can be so intense they really seem like needs to a certain kind of personality.

Pete - If you need transportation, to get to work or school, any old beater will do. You would like it to be something really nice, like a Prius or a Lexus. I don't blame you. But if you can wait for what you really want, them you didn't need a car in the first place.

My advice: you're young, you've got time ahead of you, take the time to check around and get the Prius. As someone who loves technological gadgets, it's the car you'll be happy with.