Vroom Vroom!

After much drama - Nick finally got a new car! Let us tell you about this ordeal.

Friday night we went to Carmax (adequately described by Nick as "Walmart for cars" - a huge used car dealership) and we found a car he actually really liked and in our price range. It was a deep blue Kia Rondo - a small SUV type (we were both pleasantly surprised and stunned that we actually liked a Kia - especially Nick!). We went back on Saturday morning to take a look at the car in the daylight (just to make sure we weren't deceived by how nice the car actually was) and much to our avail - they raised the price of the car by $1000! Quite unhappy about this unfortunate turn of events, we talked to the staff but they could only agree to give us the price we saw Friday for that one day only. This was irritating as we were planning on financing through a bank to get a better APR, and, as you probably know, the banks aren't open on the weekend. So even though we fully planned on purchasing this car Monday morning after we went to the bank, they refused to give us the original lower price after Saturday.

Still following us? Good! We decided to go ahead and try to finance through Carmax at the risk of a higher APR to get the car at the lower price that day. We needed a car, and quick! as we no longer felt safe driving Chuck the damaged Cutlass and we didn't know how long it would be in our possession if it was getting totaled out. Due to Nick's age and part-time employment, they would only finance us if we put $4000 down (which we don't really have to spare!). When we asked about having Nick's parents co-sign for us, Carmax made it clear that they weren't thrilled about doing that since they would have to mail the papers back and forth from CA to MI. That process would take too long and they were unwilling to hold that car for us even though it was pretty much a guarantee we were going to buy it and they had 3 others of the SAME CAR on the lot (so it wasn't like no one else could get one if they were interested). Ugh. Nothing ended up happening on Saturday and we went back Sunday one final time for Nick to plead his case and try to get the $1000 lower price on Monday. Carmax refused so we went ahead and walked out saying good riddance! You aren't willing to work with us - then you don't deserve our business!

Sunday night we went around to a few dealerships to check out their used cars and became even more frustrated discovering that the Carmax we just decided to boycott really did have the best prices and quality used cars available. Then a small miracle happened! Nick stumbled upon a used White Kia Rondo online at the Subaru dealership in town that was a higher model then the one at Carmax, $1000 cheaper than the original price ($2000 cheaper than the new price after they raised it) AND in better shape than the other one! We drove by quick to see if it was still there and it was!

Monday (this) morning, Hannah had to go off to work, but Nick also got up early to scramble around, get to the dealership first thing and do his best to get that car. Drum roll please.......... HE GOT IT! Yippee!! And for a lower down payment amount and lower APR rate (lower than Carmax AND lower than what his bank was offering)! For once something worked out perfect. He also brought Chuck the Cutlass in to get the official insurance quote on it and he ended up getting about $400 more than we expected to receive! Knock on wood, but has our luck turned around? We sure hope so!

We will leave you with a few photos of the newest member of our clan - he still needs a name(Nick was thinking sid), any suggestions? (Nick insists it's a boy - so no girl names!)

Ta-dah, here's the whole thing! Nick wants to add roof racks since it already has roof rails.

The front seats - the passenger one folds all the way down if you need to put something extra long in your car

The back seats

Geo's seat aka The trunk - those panels lift up and there's extra storage space underneath. Plus the back seats fold all the way flat

AND a sun roof! Sweet!