We've discussed getting a van for over a year now. It'd be convenient for hauling furniture, more comfortable for traveling, more room for when friends and family visit, and more practical for packing camping supplies.
Well, my little car has sounded like a loud beast for a while now. When I took it in for an oil change the other day, I had them give me an estimate for fixing it. (It was finally getting to be too loud even for me!) So auto place #1 gave us an estimate for that as well as for
another thing that needed to be fixed more immediately. Great, right?
Luckily, we use another mechanic for fixing the big stuff. Auto place #2 just has more reasonable prices. Of course, he was able to beat the estimate that auto place #1 gave us. So we got the most immediately needed fix done there, but he found yet
one more thing that needed fixing. Ugh! He gave us an estimate for that in addition to an estimate to "tame" the beast sound.
So we were looking at two more repairs to be done and of course I'm at the point where my tires are getting ready to retire. haha! (like my pun?) The current ones were not going to get me through the winter.
Instead of getting the repairs done, we chose to finally make the plunge and buy a van. Tim had done some research for a little over a week and found some good prospects. My parents watched the kids while we could do some test driving and just better discuss what we were looking for. We got a pretty good deal!
The only unfortunate thing was the car dealership wasn't willing to give us much for trading in my little car. So we put a For Sale sign on it on Sunday and within a few hours, someone was interested. They officially bought it last night. I can't believe it's gone, but we know the people that bought it so we'll be seeing it around town. :-)
That little Escort was the first car I bought on my own. I had it for 7.5 years and it served me well. Here's to making new memories with our 'new to us' van!
