Wednesday, March 24, 2010

New (to us) Car

After 9 good years it was time to say goodbye to our 1998 Honda CR-V.  It had 194,000 miles on it and rarely gave us any problems at all.  I fully intended to drive it for another 3-4 years and hoped to get 250K miles on it.  But the CR-V forced our hand in purchasing another vehicle.  You may remember me saying that we had to spend over $400 last month on a new exhaust system.  Our mechanic then informed us that it was due for a timing belt, needed a new front axle (potholes i'm sure), and a couple other things that I dont even remember.  Then Tiff was driving it earlier this week and the "check engine" light began flashing.  Since the girls and I were in the middle of getting an oil change on the Pilot, she swung by and had our mechanic take a look.  Not good.  All the repair costs would add up to almost $2,500.  We decided to put our money elsewhere.  Bye, bye CR-V, hello civic!!
After doing an internet search on monday of all the honda civics and a few toyota corrolla's, I made a short list of about 8 vehicles that met our criteria of mileage, year, and price.  There was one in particular that really stuck out as the best deal.  A 2006 Honda Civic with 52K miles.  Tiff and Amari gave it a quick check out during the day on Tuesday and when I got home from work we went back and bought it for more than $2K below blue book value.  The kicker in this all, is that we ended up talking them into giving us $3K for our CR-V.  What they dont know wont hurt them!  It felt good to drive away from a car dealership in a new car and feel like you got a really really good deal.  A rare feat indeed.

No comments: