Journey's Beginning
Jim Wright
wrightj at apple.com
Thu Apr 9 00:03:09 CDT 2009
It has been said that when one door closes, another opens. I have
been known to slam doors closed with great gusto, sometimes causing
others nearly to pop open, and objects to fall off walls. But I
digress...
I am proud to say that tomorrow I take delivery on a black 2006 Sentra
SE-R Spec V. This was a totally unexpected turn of events, as it was
not my original intention to look at a used vehicle, let alone an
older model Sentra. The Sentra styling in recent years is just not to
my liking, I would go so far as to call them ugly, and I had totally
forgotten that the earlier 2000's had some decent looking models. I
was actually seriously considering a new Versa, it didn't have the
power I was used to, but my daily driving basically involved getting
the kids to school, and a short drive along back roads to get to my
office, with rare sprints up to the legal limit, tasks the Versa would
easily have handled. But after test driving an automatic 1.8 (no
sticks on the lot, or in the city at all from the search I had done),
my wife asked me if it was the car that I really wanted. Without
hesitating I quickly replied no, I wanted the GT-R on the showroom
floor that we had just seen. She then asked if I could be happy with
the Versa, and after some thought, I could only say maybe, but that it
would definitely fit my current needs. But later, my late night
internet surfing found my looking up performance parts, and finding
few options, I started to wonder what other choices might be out there
in the price range we had set.
I found a 350Z in my price range, but unfortunately needed something
with more than two seats. My suggestion that I could take the kids to
school and make two trips fell on deaf ears, I moved on.
The Sentra I found in an internet listing simply listed it as a 2006
Sentra. No mention of SE-R, and certainly no mention of Spec V. It
did though list the engine as a 2.5, more than my '91, certainly more
than the Versa. There was a closeup of one of the wheels, and an
angled shot of the back, another from the side, various interior
shots. Nothing there to indicate that this was an SE-R. It wasn't
until I started researching that model further that I found that the
2.5 engine was only on the SE-R. Surely, this was a sign that this
was the car I was meant to have.
Black was not my first choice, in fact, it was a color that I had
specifically eliminated. Having just had a black car and wanting to
make a change, I had ruled out black, white, and wasn't too hot about
red (the only three colors the '91 SE-R was available in), and was
quite fond of a blue or possibly silver model. But of course, with
used cars, you don't always have the option of being choosey about
color, but after seeing the car up close, black just seemed like such
an obvious color. I wish it had been the Sunburst yellow, which my
wife would have hated, but black we could both agree on.
The car was listed for just under $12k, after haggling over price,
this dropped down, then after TTL, was strangely back up to about
where we started from. The price was right in the range for what cars
of this type should sell for, the mileage was relatively low, just
under 23k, new tires from the dealer, no mods that I could tell (lack
of an intake was a sure sign that nothing had been done), so I knew
that there was nothing riceboy there that I would have to fix, and
there were actually a few months left on the original factory warranty.
All in all, I'm quite happy with the purchase, and am proud to say
that I am, again, going to be an active daily driver SE-R owner. I
will still shed a tear when I say goodbye to my '91 for the last time,
but knowing that another SE-R awaits in the driveway at home should
have me smiling again in no time.
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