(This is a long story...Sorry...)
So most of you know that we have 2 old cars that we've been running into the ground. We have a 1995 Ford Contour that our neighbor in our old neighborhood was donating to the Kidney Foundation and offered to sell it to us for what he would have received - 350 bucks. But he warned us that the car probably wouldn't last very long - that was about 7 years ago and we haven't had any major problems until recently. The driver's side window doesn't roll down and the fan for the a/c and heater doesn't work. Just a few weeks ago, Quentin replaced the gaskets and spark plugs and it was running like new - until it started overheating (which was totally unrelated to what Quentin had fixed). One night coming home from Provo, it took us 3 hours because we had to stop about 5 times because it kept overheating and it blew some hoses. Ugh.
We also have a 1995 Mazda minivan. We bought it about 9 years ago and have absolutely loved it. But the driver's side window doesn't roll down, oil leaks onto the engine and causes it to smoke, and the speedometer constantly sounds like a loud tweeting bird every time we drive it. We've been living with it like this for quite awhile, grateful to not have a car payment, but within the last few weeks the air conditioning went out and it makes a horrible grinding sound. On our last camping trip we borrowed Quentin's parents car because we couldn't trust either of ours. Not wanting to invest money into something that most likely wouldn't last long, we knew it was time to look for another car.
We didn't want a car payment and have been stashing money aside for awhile, but we were on a very limited budget. We knew we liked Honda Pilots, but Hondas are Hondas - they hold their value so it's hard to find an affordable Honda. We looked at other makes and models but felt that the Pilot fit all of our needs for a family car that would last a long time.
We did lots of research, kept checking the classifieds (sometimes a half a dozen times a day!), and took a whole day to test drive cars all over the valley but just didn't feel right about any of the ones we saw, even though they were perfectly fine cars.
Then this afternoon Quentin emailed me a link to an ad. It was for a Pilot that was 3 years newer than some of the ones we looked at, had fewer miles, and was a good price. The ad was pretty short and only had a few pictures, but for some reason I felt so excited inside. In fact, I pretty much paced around the house for a couple of hours until Quentin got home from work.
When he got home, we talked about it. The car was in Logan, about an hour away, and we debated on if it was worth going all that way just to look at it. But we figured we'd be curious if we didn't, so we took off.
For some reason, when we looked at and test drove this car, it immediately felt right. We pulled out our handy-dandy "Used Car Checklist" from Popular Mechanics and did a quick check. But we knew. We had only looked at it for about 20 minutes when Quentin said to me, "Let's go back and make an offer." What?! We are both so cautious, especially when it comes to big decisions. Shouldn't we drive it a little more? Check it out more? Sleep on it and decide tomorrow? No - we both knew it was ours.
We made an offer a little lower than what they were asking. The seller basically said, "You know, I can't accept that on the first day. I have had it listed just since this afternoon and have already gotten dozens and dozens of calls on it. I won't budge on the price. In fact, I'm wondering if I should list it higher because I thought it had 4,000 miles more than it does when I looked at the fair market value." We finally made a deal we both felt good about (he did end up going down a bit). So after playing the negotiating game a bit, it was a done deal. We followed the sellers to their house, they signed over the title, they accepted a personal check for the full amount, and we drove it home. I still am amazed that they trusted us so much (personal check, letting us take it home!)
I think one of the best parts of this story is when we went to the seller's house to fill out the paperwork. He opened the door and said, "You guys have been praying about this, haven't you?" We admitted that we have been praying for months to find the right car for our family, and something we can afford (we didn't want a car payment.) He basically said, "Well, we had talked about selling it for awhile but we put it online today kind of on a whim, not really knowing why." I guess now we know - and I thank Heavenly Father for being aware of our situation and helping us find a safe, reliable car that our family can enjoy for years and years.
So...because it was about 11:00 p.m. when we got home, I'm going to make you wait till I can get a good picture to show you our "new" car! Yippee!
