"New" Cars

Those people who have talked to me know that I have been considering purchasing a new car since early December. I’ve looked at darned near everything. This all stemmed from my serious dislike of my Nissan Quest. Oddly I have very little to complain about the car. In fact, I loved it for over a year and a half. Lately though a few things have been getting to me. The “cheapness” of the materials, the fact that a 30,000 mile service cost $500 (my Buick and Erin’s Yukon cost about $250, I love American) and since December the doors (all of them) stick so badly that most teenagers need to shove their shoulder into the door to push it open. To top it all off there has already been 3 recalls, just makes me nervous.

So I was in the market for a new car. I went all over the spectrum. I test drove a Buick Rendezvous. I loved my last Buick like no other car I’ve owned. But when sales people didn’t call back I decided to wait. I then looked at the Subaru Tribeca, their new SUV since it has AWD and they are incredibly well rated. From there I looked at a hybrid car, so I can take the HOV lanes (lanes that can only be used if you have 2 or more people in the car) when Erin stays home. The Toyota Prius and Honda Civic (both were nixed since they are small, super expensive – in the Prius’ case and I will not pay MSRP for any car). I had finally settled on a Ford Escape Hybrid. I’ve never liked Fords since I know a bunch of people who had many problems with their Fords, but I was definitely set to test drive it, since I could get it close to invoice, just had to wait for incentives which would let me get it for under invoice.

What is it that I am about to purchase then, you ask? A 1999 Chrysler Town & Country Limited AWD with almost 110,000 miles on it.

This car search has been incredibly enlightening to me. Every new car I looked at and research just didn’t “jump” at me. It just seemed like I didn’t love any of the cars. It also seemed like God was conspiring against me, since I found little problems in everything I looked at.

Then Rob (yeah, I talk about him a lot lately, I’ll stop sometime, I promise) shot me this article called “The Voodoo We all Do” by Sarah Unger. It opened up describing my life. Erin and I do pretty well and still feel like we don’t have enough money.

I decided to look at some used vehicles instead of buying new, with the goal of finding something for under $10,000. I searched almost constantly for the past two weeks, looking at Acura RL and TL’s (all were still to expensive and I wanted AWD, though the TL DOES have my initials), Toyota Sienna’s, Prius’, GMC Envoys, Lexus (no on the rear wheel drive, thank you), Honda’s, anything and everything really. I finally started looking at Consumer Reports’ 3rd highest ranked minivan, below the Toyota and Honda, which are still crazy expensive. I found the Chrysler and just started looking around. Tonight I gave one a test drive and really liked it.

Don’t get me wrong, my Nissan has a lot more features. I’ll sure miss the power doors and lift gate. But instead of continuing to pay $700 a month for he next 3 years, this car I can borrow my own money (so the interest goes back to me) to pay for it and have it paid off within 6 months. So, it’s essentially a car I can buy and have a lot of money to give away. I just can’t wait.

This is still a little hard for me. I’ll be buying a top of the line navigation system to replace the one I have in my Nissan, and I’ll be getting a nice DVD system, again in my Nissan. But with all of that it’s still over 15 thousand dollars less than I still owe on the Nissan. Is it worth it?

Well, since I found this Chrysler everything has fallen into place. I’ve felt really, really good about my decision, the seller has been really easy to work with, and the price is right. But the deepest feeling really is a peace that I can’t explain. I really feel like this is the path God is leading me toward in the car arena. I can only hope everyone out there can feel this sense of peace by jumping out of your comfort zone.

I can only imagine the looks I’m going to get in the neighborhood. I’ll go from having one of the nicest minivans in the neighborhood to having one of the worst… I can’t wait!

Peace,
+Tom/Bob

posted by Tom at 11:40 PM