A while back, Jon's car started leaking significant amounts of oil. It was already leaking radiator fluid and the A/C had quit too. After talking to Jon's dad, we realized the car was not going to last much longer. We got this car a few months after we were married, when the car I had before we were married was totaled in an accident. That means Snowball (as we called that car) had been with us for about 8 years and lots of miles. Did I also mention that there was no radio since that was stolen a month after we moved to Toledo, and as a medical student family, we did not had the money to replace it.
Any way, we realized that Snowball would not be with us much longer. What do we do? We had a lot of options. Do we wait until the car completely dies before we get something new? We could buy a car for Jon to drive back and forth to work for a few thousand. We could pay off our Fusion, and get another car payment with something bigger. We decided to start researching and see what we could find out. We looked at a range of vehicles. Mostly cars and midsized SUVs. We used a loan calculator to see how big of a loan we could afford, by figuring out how much of a monthly payment we could afford. We decided to pay off our Fusion and eventually get something bigger. But what?
We talked to a few people and did more research, and came to the hard decision that a minivan would be best for us right now. If any of you know me very well, you know I have always been anti-minivan, so this was not an easy decision to make. At this point, Jon's car seemed to stop leaking oil, and not because it was empty. We were able to go a few months without a car payment, which was awesome.
Then we came to the realization that it would be better to make this purchase before Jon's car totally died so we could get some kind of a trade in value. We were not expecting much given the condition of the car, but something is better than nothing. Jumped into the search more seriously again. We decided we would get either a 2006+ Honda Odyssey or a 2007+ Toyota Sienna. In the end we decided on the Sienna because of minivans we had driven in the passed and the Toyota was more comfortable for us. I happened upon a 2007 Sienna with low miles in our price range. It seemed too good to be true. I even liked the color. The trick was getting in to check it out. With Jon's schedule and not wanting to take our boys when we went, it turned out to be a miracle.
We were going to go around 7:00 on a Tuesday, because that is when we found someone to watch our boys. Things changed and they were able to watch our boys earlier (Thanks Swensons!). We got to the dealer at 5:59 to find out they close at 6:00. The manager was able to find a salesman willing to stay late to talk to us. More to think about. On the way home, we stopped at Culver's for dinner (I mentioned this earlier).
We decided to move forward and see if we could get this van, but Jon would not be able to go back in until Saturday. We did need to get financing though. We were able to get a loan with great terms through my credit union in Idaho (that I have been a member of for about 20 years). Without all the details of that stressful long Saturday, we were able to trade in Snowball and get our new minivan pictured below. Sorry for the bad pictures. Some of you have or will see it in person.
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