The Upgrade

By Jonathan Mellberg

We never had a new car growing up. Our modest means necessitated modest transportation. I’m not complaining; far from it. I’m glad. One doesn’t need a new car any more than one needs a new house. I’m proud of my upbringing; it’s (part of) the same reason my house doesn’t have cable, an i-Pad, or a refrigerator equipped with Wi-Fi and ambient lighting; if we didn’t need then, we don’t need it now.  Oh, and also cuz I can’t afford it.

Being the mechanically-minded man he was (and still is), my father was always making plays for another car to join the house of Mellberg. There were so many cars. Of the more memorable ones were Dad’s daily driver, a Chevy Chevette (please don’t confuse this for either a Chevelle or a Corvette. These couldn’t be farther from what the Chevette was), which after being rolled into the ditch was later replaced by a Geo Metro. Dad got close to fifty miles to the gallon in that little Geo. There was a Ford Escort, and a fine looking Mercury Grand Marquis. Mom once schmucked a full-size doe with the Merc at a cool 55mph. It merely cracked the front grill fascia, and we continued on our way to the grocery store. The deer wasn’t so lucky. Then there was a Chevy Astro, right around the time I began driving. I liked it; it had a nice, high seating position, and I enjoyed its upright nature. Of course, mom and dad procured the perfect car for me to buy off of them once I turned sixteen; my 1991 Chevy Lumina Euro Sport two-door. Oh yeah, it was red too.

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(very similar to the Merc our family once had)

It was years later before I made my dumbest automotive ploy yet; I bought a new car, my 2005 Scion tC. I was 21-ish, living with dad in Annandale, MN, and willful enough not to consult my father about my purchase. Luckily, my surprise acquisition wasn’t met with scorn, and truthfully, out of the two of us, dad is the only one to peg the tC at over 120mph; thanks dad. But, my tC ownership wasn’t meant to last, and through a series of mismanaged money moves, the tC and I parted ways after 2½ years, quite bitterly. And there you have it, now everyone knows. My wife, Tate, had a very similar first car experience. Her parents helped her get a Chevy, roughly ten years old at the time (like mine). Her 1997 Chevy Cavalier wasn’t just a coupe but a convertible as well. And I’ll bet she loved it even more than I loved my Lumina.

my 2005 Scion tC

When I first met Tate I had just lost my Scion. Dad helped me get a sweet deal on this early nineties Oldsmobile 98. The thing was a tank, rode on pillows, and could really take a hit. I was broadsided one time, and a month later, monster-trucked by a grandma in her Cadillac when she mistook her gas pedal for the brake pedal. Yeah. After that I rotated cars about once a year: There was the 1996 Mercury Tracer, the 1996 Chevy Corsica, the 1992 Honda Accord, and now my current car, my POS 1997 Pontiac Grand Am. All the while Tate’s Cavalier soldiered on with relatively low maintenance costs and repairs. It was a couple years ago we realized it would really help to have at least one newer, reliable vehicle between the two of us. We decided to sell Tate’s Cavalier; it was time to upgrade. We briefly considered buying new, for about two seconds. Once we sobered up we started to narrow down what we wanted: midsize sedan, V6 power, front-wheel drive, non-luxury marquee, and lower miles if possible. We started searching and eventually test drove about ten different cars before setting the Nissan Altima in our crosshairs.

my 1996 Mercury Tracer 

my 1996 Chevy Corsica

I’d always loved the Altima, in almost every generation. I had wanted one for years, but I didn’t really know it until we drove one. It was the only car that met my expectation of how much power was readily usable; incidentally it was the only that whose four-cylinder engine was perfectly acceptable over its beefier V6 counterpart. A big selling point was how smooth the Altima accelerated. For the 2008 and up model years Nissan gambled and introduced the CVT transmission in lieu of a standard 4, 5, or 6-speed automatic transmission. The gamble paid off. The Altima drives seamlessly with no traditional, perceptible shifting. Beyond that, the Altima is (at least in feeling) one of the larger midsize cars out there, yet it drives (and parks!) smaller than it is. Its back seat is generous as is its trunk. Its styling is, well, midsize sedan-ish. Personally I find it quite attractive, for a “boring” car.

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(Chevy Cavalier Convertible, not unlike my wife's previous car)

It was a tough decision at first. Neither Tate nor I were currently saddled with a car payment. And while taking on a $265 per-month payment seemed like a lot, that’s definitely on the lower end of many peoples’ payments (for instance, a base 2015 Nissan Altima stickers for roughly $23,705, and is $395 per-month if purchased over five years at 0.9% APR). But the test drive definitely helped change our minds. Driving a nice, newer (our Altima was only a year old at the time), modern car with a robust and smooth powertrain was quite addicting, as were the modern amenities, one of them being keyless entry and push-button start (Tate’s car key never leaves her purse).

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(Nissan Altima, virtually the same car we upgraded to)

I suppose by know, if you’re still reading, you’re wondering whether there is a point to all this. Yes, silly, there is. Some of us will always have the means for a new car, and some of us won’t. Most of us, at some point in our lives, fall somewhere in the middle. Tate and I were lucky enough to be in stable jobs with low rent payments which helped afford us the chance to upgrade. There’s nothing wrong with older cars; the majority of the +dozen cars I’ve owned have all been past their prime. But there is something to be said for that new car smell, the fact that the slate is still relatively clean, that you have the chance to properly car for and live with a newer car. You’ll be amazed how different it feels to drive around and not have to worry about the alignment, the head gaskets, the transmission, the struts, and all those little annoyances that only plague a car more as it ages. I’m not saying you need a newer car, but it’s worth looking to…