New Ride in the Garage

After quite an ordeal and several back and forths, we decided to trade our much loved 2001 Mazda MPV in for a 2007 Toyota Sienna. In hindsight, we should've bought a new car in Maryland before we moved and saved ourselves almost $1,000 dollars in two different repair jobs after arriving here. Plus when the Toyota dealership pulled the Carfax it had a previous collision (which we knew about but it wasn't a serious one) and so they could only give us auction price of $2,800 instead of the $4,200 blue book price. :( Even as we compared Town and Countrys, Grand Caravans, Siennas and the Hyundai Entourage there were still several small things with our little '01 MPV that weren't in these newer cars and at the last moment I almost chickened out.


But our pretty light blue 8-seater Sienna is great. It is much roomier than our MPV and has a lot of newer features: 40-60 split back seat that folds flat, 5 latch seats (3 middle 2 back), power sliding door, garage door opener, Aux port for my iPod, tons of cupholders, tinted windows, etc. But the main reason we went with the Sienna was because Toyota has the certified preowned warranty so after adding on the bumper to bumper to the 100,000 mile powertrain warranty, if anything major goes wrong we only have to pay a $50 deductible. That is peace of mind.

So even though our car payment is $60 more a month, we have a much more comfortable and safer ride. The 8 seater has some great flexibility. The best being we don't have to climb in the back to buckle kids in since all 3 car seats fit across the middle. Still though, now that I have ONE power door, I see the slots for power tailgate and the driver side power door and start to wish we'd waited another weekend and shopped around more for a used XLE with ALL the features, even if it was a 7 seater instead of an 8. What's that joke about a woman shopping for the perfect man and never being satisfied? That's me with a minivan!!

This car will definitely suit our needs for the next 5 years at least and who knows, by then we may own one of those quad cab trucks and be towing a camping trailer across the country for fun in the summer.....

(regarding the photos, we were showing Matt's uncle around on Christmas Eve and drove up the Klamath River canyon and while we were stopped taking in the view, the van was just beckoning for a photo shoot!)

Oh and we actually unpacked our garage enough that we can park it in there. Only problem is I keep forgetting to close the door when I back out because I'm used to parking in a carport!