This past weekend was a crazy one for us. Last Friday, we paid off my car over two years early (yay!) and had some champagne to celebrate. That led to a sluggish Saturday and a restless debate of, "What do you wanna do?" "I don't know, what do you want to do?", which never seems to go anywhere. Finally, I said to Mike,
"You wanna go to the Toyota dealership and just look around?"
Two things are important to point out at this point in our story. One, we've been talking about replacing his car for a good long while now. Mike loves the Vibe-- the good ol' trusty red Vibe-- but that thing was loved. It had 100,000+ miles on it, and thankfully, nothing large had gone wrong. We were lucky, and we were fine, but we knew that luck would probably run out sooner than later. When talking about cars, we (ok I) love the Rogue. It's such a cute little SUV.. but the problem is telling any man that a car is cute. That's the kiss of death. So when I was at the dealer for my last oil change, I talked to a sales-guy about the Rav4. Well, come to find out, they completely redesigned the whole thing to look more like a Rogue, but less girly, and it's a Toyota, so it's bound to be super dependable. Well, there we go! So we anxiously awaited to see what it would look like after its redesign, then waited for dealers to get them. In the mean time, Mike's parents also decided to buy a new Rav4-- so the confidence from Mike's dad in the vehicle definitely helped! So we knew this is what we would buy, it just became a matter of when.
Which leads me to my second point. Bartons, us specificially, never just go look at something. We're sort of neurotically impulsive, if that makes sense. We decide what we want, but when it comes to biting the bullet, it always comes at unexpected times. So this time was no different.
We tried looking at a used Rav4. Loved the price, hated the actual design and way the car drove. But, we did try. We were already sold on the new redesign. So after some talking with the salesman, and some "craziness" from the finance guy, we arrived at a monthly payment we felt good about. It was the whole, "What would it take to get your business today?" question, with us going, "well we don't need this today." So it happened. We freaked out, drove home to think about it, and then decided to do it. So we drove back to the dealership and signed our lives away on this baby.
This thing is nuts. Not only is it a super attractive looking car (I think), but because it's new, it should be reliable for a good long time, but especially for our upcoming 24-hour drive. It's got all the bells and whistles you could really ask for, including a touch-screen radio and Bluetooth connectivity that hooks up so you can stream music from your phone or talk on the phone through the stereo system. I'm honestly not sure I'm hip enough for this car, but I'm learning to be spoiled really fast!
When all is said and done, we are completely happy and in love with our new car! We have a super comfortable, dependable new car.. and I did NOT think it would happen until at least next year. It was our first big purchase as a married couple, and everything went really smoothly. Mike was sad to let go of the Vibe, but I think we're going to be happy with this one for a very long time!
After picking it up, we drove to Guptill's (our favorite local ice cream stand) and celebrated with some well-deserved cones. Hey, it might not be the healthiest choice, but buying a car is stressful and definitely brings up some anxiety that only ice cream can soothe. ;)
Our fleet is pretty cute, huh? Oh, right.... cooool. Our fleet is pretty cool ;)
(Our Yaris and Rav4).
No comments:
Post a Comment