This afternoon my wife and I went to a local GMC Pontiac Buick dealer, and were made aware of one and shown and drove another live possibility.

We were told of (but won't see until Monday) a 2002 LeSabre Limited, with 20,000 miles on it. We were told, and Carfax verifies, it is a one owner car, bought here in Indiana and sold here. No indication of wrecks, etc. "Loaded" was the word. They want $13,000.

Although we are getting out of our current 1994 Cadillac DeVille (partly because of relatively high mileage, its age, and the necessity to use premium, we were shown, drove, and have borrowed for the weekend a 1999 Cadillac DeVille-Concourse, with 24,000 miles. Gas mileage is estimated about the same per gallon as the LeSabre. What seems to be the full set of repair-and-service records are in the glovebox. Again, it's one owner, the saleswoman's husband's grandmother, who no longer can drive. Loaded, attractive. They ask for $13,500. I haven't seen fit to run a Carfax on this one. The two drawbacks to this are (1) it requires premium, like our Cadillac, which will cost us about $300 a year extra by comparison to the 2002 LeSabre; and (2) the shift mechanism is in one of those between-the-seats consoles instead of on the steering column. I don't care too much for that, but it's not a deal-breaker.

We haven't yet got to how much they would give us for our 1994 Caddie, but Kelley Blue Book estimates the trade-in value for it at $2,000 to $2,500 in this area.

I thought some of you just might be interested in the followup thus far. More later.

Dave Oesterreich