Hello everyone!

This is my first post here. I live in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, and have been looking at cars for weeks, trying to find the right one for me. My goal was to find something for around $5000-$6000, something fairly decent, low mileage, that stood out a bit. I was at a point where I was in the position to finally buy a car that wasn't a beater, that didn't have issues all over. So over the last couple weeks I searched long and hard. This specific car search was quite important to me, as the last time I owned nice car was 7 years ago, when I was 18, a 1995 Eagle Talon. I loved that car, so many memories in it, so many good times. But, 7 months after I bought it, it was stolen from home when I was away, and smashed into a light pole, $18,000 damage to the front end, and needless to say, the insurance company gave me a lot less than what the car was worth. After that, a series of events left me almost broke, and for the last 6 and a half years or so, I've been able to get by with high mileage, disposable cars. So, this was sort of symbolic of me getting back to where I should have been, before everything went haywire.

My journey started yesterday, a few friends said they would drive me into Edmonton to look at cars Tuesday and Wednesday, and they hid away when the time came to give me a lift. So I said screw it, yesterday I bought a ticket for the Greyhound, and went in alone, not knowing how I would get anything done, but knowing that I could, somehow. So, I got into Edmonton on the bus, with my license plate and 'inspection' tools in a backpack, and started walking towards downtown. I texted a few friends I have around Edmonton, mostly everyone was working at that time. Earlier on the bus, I had sent a text to my long time best friend, who I haven't seen for ages, just to see how he was doing, as we hadn't spoke in a long time and lost touch. He called me later that day, as I was trying to figure out what to do, and said he was actually coming into Edmonton the same day to get some stuff done, so it worked out perfectly. Then I was giving him directions, and of course, my cell dies. So, I am sitting in the coffee shop, waiting for him to come in, not knowing if he even knows where I am talking about, an hour later he finally gets there, thank god. Then, we start to look at cars. It was pretty cool having him there, because when I had my Talon, he mine as well have had his named stitched into the passenger seat.

We looked at a few cars, but nothing really that I was interested in. Some had leaks, some where just bagged to crap, and worn out. In the back of my head I had always thought it would be cool to get an Eclipse, as it would sort of be like an updated version of what I had before, but I was looking at everything. Car after car, it just wasn't panning out. It's almost 8 pm, and I am wondering what the hell I am going to do. So, I called up one guy I had talked to earlier in the day, that just got home from work, and we swung by his place, to look at the Eclipse.

The car had a "rebuilt status", meaning it was written off, but everything was fixed. I was very careful looking it over, but the car was a lot cheaper than your average Eclipse, due to the rebuilt status, and it only had 130,000k on it. The guy had pictures of all the damage, everything that was repaired, and tons and tons of paperwork, and inspection forms. The car ran well, clutch was nice and stiff, when I peeked in the oil cap, everything was nice and clean in there. Took it for a drive, handled nice, shifted great, this was my car. So, at 8:30, I have him the cash, he gave me all the paperwork, and drove her home, drove smooth all the way back, no shakes, didn't drift at all, it was great.

So I am now a happy 03 Mitsubishi Eclipse owner. The car is the 4 cyl model, all leather interior, came with 18" chrome rims (don't know the brand) With Bridgestone Potenza rubber. Silver in color, there is a bit of overspray in parts that were repainted, but overall, its pretty good. Very happy to once again have a nice car, and be proud to own it! I will post some pics later!