“Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I shall fear no evil. For thou art with me.”- a verse from… ummm….somewhere in the Bible.
It’s been a very rough week. I mean rough. Why so rough? Because I bought a car yesterday. For some folks this is a pleasurable thing to do. Not me. It’s been the one task that I have been dreading for months. I’ve been praying to God that my old car could hang on for another year but obviously HE had other plans. I must obey.
My old car was a 2003 Dodge Grand Caravan. My husband purchased it for me when I was eight months pregnant with our son (the youngest of our two kids). I hated the hell out of it right away. When we were on the lot, I saw a wonderful Jeep SUV. It was super cool. The minivan was super lame. I’m a city girl. Minivans are signature suburban mom vehicles. But talking to my husband and the salesperson helped put things into perspective. I am a suburban mom now. The gas mileage was better on the van and there was more interior room. I was getting ready to have two car seats to contend with in one vehicle. Space was critical. Ok. I caved in and we (he) bought it.
At first I drove it in shame and parked far away from the entrance to everything. I was not happy. But over time I just got used to it. And as it turns out that van was one of the best things to happen to our family. It brought our son home from the hospital when he was born. It helped us to move from Laurel in Prince George’s County to the E. Cott in Howard County. It has been driven us all up and down the East Coast from Egg Harbor, New Jersey (a place I hope to never visit again) to Greensboro, North Carolina. It has given so many people rides home and helped transport things from place to place. That van has witnessed my highs and lows and has kept many of my secrets. It has never left me on the side of the road. All in all it’s been great.
On Tuesday, I put my van into the shop because the check engine soon light was on. My mechanic said it needed a new catalytic converter. That was gonna cost around $600. I just finished putting a new radiator in to the tune of $400 in February. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!! These are classic signs that my car is dying and it’s time to cut it loose. These are also signs that I was about to have a mini-nervous breakdown. I hate car buying. The shopping. The haggling. The sizing up of charlatans we call salespeople. The scavenger hunt to find out what’s wrong with the car. And I would have look at my credit which nearly brings me to tears whenever I think about it. A credit report is like a report card for adults. It tells whether you’ve been good or bad. I wasn’t sure what mine would look like. We’ve had some extremely bad luck in my household for the past three years. Oh well, I gotta put my big girl panties on and face the music.
I researched for three days about cars, dealers, prices, features, safety, recalls, gas mileage, car fax reports, etc. and narrowed it down to three choices. Now it’s time to visit a dealer. I made appointments with three of them to test drive a car. Then I made the most important appointment of all. I called my friend from DC who is an auto mechanic to come look at these cars with me. He was my Luca Brasi (Godfather movie reference for those of you who don’t know that name). He was right on time too. You know what his first piece of advice was? Go to CarMax and skip the other dealers. BINGO!!!!
To make a long blog shorter, we went to CarMax and had a wonderful experience. I had knots in my stomach all week about financing and getting sold a lemon. In fact, everyone kept asking me if I was ok yesterday. I guess my face showed how worried I was. It was all good. My credit is fine and I got a decent rate. The car was perfect and suited my style better. The price was totally fair and I didn’t have to haggle. The salesperson was a good dude and made me feel a lot more comfortable. A four day panic attack for nothing. Now I still have a car note that I haven’t had in more than 10 years but it’s on par for the course I guess. I rest a little better now as the Urban Bushwoman: Toyota Corolla owner (cue the horns).
Happy trails!