We bought our new car yesterday! It is a 2006 Toyota Sienna. We had our mechanic come with us to the lot to check out the four cars I was considering. This one was my favorite, as it had the lowest mileage, was relatively new, had darker interiors so the messes wouldn't be such a pain to deal with and I just liked the color. Two of the other cars in the running had features which might have been better than this one, so we asked him about their value versus the price of the vehicle versus what kind of headache would it be to fix if they should have problems, etc. His opinion knocked those two out of the running. The other one I was looking at was white, with leather interiors, which I did not like, it was also a year older with about 27,000 more miles on it than the newer one, it was however, nearly $2500 less expensive, which was the biggest draw for me.

It is funny, because things that are basics and standard on newer vehicles are really cool extras to us, so it really doesn't take much to impress us on the extras. We emphatically did not want a dvd player in the car, so that knocked off one of the eight vehicles he had on his lot that were in our sights before we even pulled our mechanic in on the consideration. The fellow selling the cars was telling us how they weren't anything extra special, just came with the standard factory amenities (with a few exceptions on a few of them), and we were just ecstatic that we'd have a cd player in the car and things like all working windows and power seats. This is what comes of us buying eight to 15 year old cars since we've been married.

So, our mechanic looked at the four to which I had limited our choice, and we asked him about the benefits of various extras, and he helped us reduce our choices even more. When he checked out this car, he said aside from needing to rotate the tires, replace them in about a year and a slight scratch on the plastic part of the bumper which was touched up, it was gold. He said that with the mileage as low as it was, what he saw under the hood, and how it drove, we were basically getting a new car. Also, this fellow was pricing his vehicles about $3000 below the blue book value, so although we didn't have as much wiggle room to negotiate price, we were already getting a really good deal. So, since this car had nearly 16,000 miles on it, two very short term owners and no accidents on record, was in good condition, both physically and mechanically, he said go for it. He told us he was trying to find things to rip it apart, and just couldn't. So, we bought it. I will post a picture of it as soon as we make that other purchase for the computer. We are now ready for our new baby. We have room for her in the car, all the things we need for her here, and we can await her arrival without concern for material needs.

Labels: Baby, Family