Sunday, October 5, 2008

Nine Years Later ... and 24 Years Later ... and One Baby Later: WE BUY A NEW CAR!

As noted in a previous blog post, Jonathan's 24 year old Honda Civic CRX has passed away. My own car is nine years old, and was a make-shift family car for the first 10 months of Christian's life.

The car buying process was detailed and tiring. I wanted to do thorough reserach on a good family car and it just became too time consuming. I'll spare you the stories of visiting various car dealerships, the "bait and switch" tactics, etc.

We finally went to the Saturn dealer just to look around. We decided to say we were looking for a car early next year so as not to get the cheesy sales guy treatment as opposed to the truth, "We have just one car right now and we desperately need to get a car!!" But as you might know, Saturn is a bit different. The sales people don't make a commission.

I was wanting a white vehicle, but we didn't say that. As he walked us into the showroom to show us the just-arrived 2009 VUE, he commented that he had a white 2008 VUE left and it was the only four cylinder they had left ... but that he'd just show us the 2009 model because we'd be getting something in the spring.

Well, well, well ... turns out the 2008 model was no different from the 2009 model, and it was several thousand dollars LESS. So after our artificial oohing and aahing over the pretty red 2009 VUE in the showroom, I said, "You mentioned something about having a white 2008 model?"

Long-story-short, here is our new car:



Here is the amazing part of the deal: We bought this VUE on Sunday, September 28. We got a very good interest rate though their finance company because I told them how low my credit union's interest rates are. The stock market crashed hard on Monday, September 29. I have heard several news reports this week discussing the difficulites in obtaining any kind of loans right now ... home loans, car loans, etc.

So just like with our house selling last week, the timing was perfect to get this vehicle! Had we waited even 24 hours, its possible we couldn't have gotten a loan and wouldn't have been able to get this VUE.

We had planned on getting a used car, so a brand new car is quite a treat! Jonathan will use the Cavalier as a "commuter car" to get back and forth to work. The VUE will stay home with me, and it will be our family car when we're all out together.

I must give kudos to Jonathan for driving the same car for 24 years ... virtually unheard of in today's throw-away society. And he was driving a car without a/c in the Phoenix heat. What a guy!!

(Side note to that comment: today is Sunday and Jonathan is at Palo Verde in a protective suit hanging "lead blankets" in the contamination area of the plant. There is no air conditioning and these lead blankets are 45 pounds. Jonathan has a bad back. I hope he's okay!)