New Van!

We are the new owners of a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan as of June 27th!

It's Ohio State Red.  I guess that is the perfect reminder of our time here in Ohio.  I never thought I would purchase a red vehicle, but here it is.    I've been talking about getting another car now rather than waiting until we're under the pressure of out growing the civic.  Though, I really feel like we outgrew the civic when Kalia was born.  The backseat is pretty tight.  Back to the van.  We also thought finances might be too tight following graduation as though a second car would be necessary for Tristan to get to work.  So the search began.  Mostly online at first as I looked at consumer reports, quizzes, and comparisons.  I didn't have much of an idea of what I wanted.  SUV? Van?  We decided we just needed to get into a dealership and start test driving.  

One day, when the timing just seemed to be right, we decided to finally talk to real people.  The first dealership we visited we told them we were just beginning our search and wanted to know what they had to offer.  The salesman started with the vans, showing our price range.  I was appalled.  These vans where OLD and worn out.  I thought the search was going to be long and difficult.  We left quite disappointed.  We were on our way to some other activity when we impulsively stopped at another dealership after spotting some vans in our price range.  It took forever to get a salesman out to us, but once we did we got right into the van messing around with the seats to see how everything worked.  We weren't too serious (though Tristan later admitted he knew when he saw the van that it would be the one we purchased) and I took a quick drive around the block while Tristan and the girls chatted with the salesman.  We didn't want to transfer both car seats for just a quick test drive.  The dealership was closing and we had to leave, though we left our information.  I got a call about ten minutes later telling me they would be open another twenty minutes and if we still wanted to take it for an overnight test we could.  We talked, and we got back in the civic.  Half an hour later we were officially testing the car with intent to bring it back Monday by close (this was Saturday).

The entire day Sunday we debated.  Was this the best car for us?  It's from 05, but there was 81,000 miles.  Would we find something better for less?  How long did we want to drag the search out?  It was in pretty good condition (from what we could tell) and the interior looked spotless.  We'd pretty much made up our minds.  I don't regret the purchase, I do wish we could have gotten the price down just a bit more.  The dealership had priced it fairly and if we didn't buy it, someone else would.  We lost our bargaining power pretty quick.  We financed with the hope of building credit and I certainly hope that helps when we're looking at mortgages and practice loans.