Do I need a new car?

I don't but I can drive a lot further than I can walk so my car is an issue.  My 16-year old Toyota Echo goes as well as ever and has always been perfect for me.  But in my declining years there is a small problem with it: My feet tend to slip off the pedals at times.  That is of course dangerous so I deal with it by keeping a good distance away from the car in front of me.  That has worked so far.

Recently, however, I met a bloke who loves old Toyota Echos.  He too thinks Echos are pretty perfect.  He almost salivated when I told him that my Echo has only a bit over 100,000k on the clock.  He desperately wants to buy it off me and has offered $3,000 for it.  A dealer would give me $500.

So that is rather tempting.  My Echo would go to a good home and I would have $3,000 towards buying a new car.  And the new car could be an AUTOMATIC, which would cut back my pedal use and should therefore be safer.  So after 60 years of driving stick-shift cars I would join the softies who drive automatics

So I looked into that.  Because my existing car is so good for my purposes, I could not justify spending a lot of money on a new car.  Just another cheap small car would fill the bill.  So I went for a test-drive in an MG3.  MGs these days are made in China but a lot of British design skill has been put into them and I do like the look of the result.  

And as a cheap car it lacks a lot of the frills you find these days on dearer cars.  After 60 years of having only a speedo and a fuel gauge in front of me I am dubious of my need for anything else.  But I decided that the cruise control, rear camera etc could be useful so the low level of equipment actually suited me

But it all came to naught.  I went for a test drive and found that the seat was not very comfortable.  With my elderly back, I need an ergonomically designed seat with good mid-back support.  And to get that I would need to go to a much more fancy model. So no deal.

EPILOGUE: In putting up this post I had some hope of helpful suggestions. I got two. Joe said I should buy an automatic Toyota secondhand. As we have both had exemplary service out of Toyotas bought secondhand that seemed no problem

The second suggestion was Jenny's. She said I might be safer driving in slippers. I got out an old pair of slippers and she was right. End of problem at zero cost!