Friday, April 13, 2007

My new baby!

Here's a look at the newest addition to our garage!
I'll give you the whole unexpected story. Last Saturday Mark and I decided to go out for dinner just the 2 of us because our Anniversary was on Thursday and then to top off the exciting night we were going to get groceries! Can you tell it's been 16 years!!
We didn't make it very far- soon I noticed cold air blowing out of the vents and I asked Mark why there was cold air blowing when the temp was registering fairly warm.
About a whole 30 seconds later he says Oh no- we've got to get off the road we're overheating.
So that's how our romantic night began. Sitting in a parking lot for 25 minutes waiting for our van to cool down so we could attempt to get it home. Thankfully we made it. Well we changed the thermostat to no avail and a very smart mechanic informed us it was probably the head gasket-sigh.....
Well we started checking our options because in talking with 2 other mechanics that we trust we were informed that it's very likely that once the head gasket go's in a vehicle with as many miles as ours has the engine will soon be departing also. sigh again....
Well to fix both of those problems you're talking at least 3500.00 and that's more than the van is worth so it really doesn't make sense to put more money into it.
We started looking around and found this van on a website for a car dealer. Tuesday night we went to look at it and when we took it for a test drive the amount on the windshield was 2,500.00 more than it said on the internet.
We liked the van and decided to buy it and the salesman went to corroborate our story about the price online. He came back chuckling and said there had been a mistake- someone had put the price that they paid for the vehicle online instead of what they wanted for it- but they had to stand by the price online! An interesting piece of into for you that the salesman shared with us- if you look at the yellow tag that they have all the info on the key ring- on the body style number- there will be a number. That is usually what they paid for the vehicle so the salesman knows how much they can barter with you. Mark noticed that number while we were waiting and it was the amount online so he figured that was what happened.
So we got a 2,500.00 break on the vehicle- it's about time a little good luck falls our way!!
It's a 2005 Caravan- it's got higher miles than I would have liked but it's what we could afford and I've heard from a couple different sources now that the miles on these new vehicles doesn't matter like it used to. It was owned by a company so we know it was well taken care of and they are highway miles. It's got a 2 year warranty also!
I know worldly possessions don't bring happiness but this is a very similar feeling to happiness I must say!!!!!





2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice van!!!!!! Congrats! How are we going to tell them apart?! I think I'll go buy a window cling or something...

Laura said...

Very nice. I hope it treats you well!