New to Me New Car

After months and months of searching, we finally have purchased a new to us new car.

Let me start at the beginning. The week we discovered I was pregnant with baby number two was the same week we moved Genevieve out of the infant car seat and into the convertible car seat. Upon installation of the convertible car seat in my Ford Escape, we discovered that the infant seat doesn't fit comfortably behind the driver seat nor in the middle with Genevieve's new convertible seat installed. And so commenced our car search.

Since we knew we had till April to make a decision, we weren't in such a hurry. We set our price range, desired year range, and mileage limit; and kept an eye out. I added in some features that I felt were no negotiable. For example, I preferred leather interior to the cloth seats. No real reason why though. Also my Ford Escape has back up sensors that I have unfortunately become rather reliant on. So they became standard and a camera would be preferred.

We originally started looking at minivans - specifically the Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Caravan. Yes, we drive only American cars. We found a couple on the internet, contacted a few sellers, and ever test drove a couple. However, nothing seemed right and we decided to put the search on hold till after the move.

Once we moved to Atlanta, we upped our search. We weren't having much luck with minivans so we started considering a bigger SUV. We also decided to purchase a smaller infant car seat. The one we had was great but it is the largest on the market. In addition, there became a need to sell/get rid of Josh's car. About a month before we left DC our neighbors hit his car and the bumper was pulled off the car. So it no longer seemed an appropriate car to drive potential real estate clients around in. Plus it started dying routinely in route to his work.

After what seemed like a marathon long weekend at looking at cars, we finally found a couple that we were considering and pretty much knew its was between those two - a suburban or a tahoe. We finally went with the tahoe.

We are so happy with our new vehicle. There was a bit of a debate on who was going to get the new to us car as their primary source of transportation. In the end, victory was mine mainly due to the fact that I stay within a 15 minute radius of our house. It has all the bells and whistles that our last car/cars didn't have. We are having fun playing with the navigation system. I love the automatic rear door open and close. I look forward to watching DVDs on our trips back to Indiana. I am still getting use to it's size. Even though I am accustomed to driving a SUV, it is slightly wider and longer than what I had. I am supper hesitant to pull into most parking spots and I feel like it takes me 30 minutes to back it out of the garage.

On a side note, I am still not a fan of car salesmen. I know they have a process they want to go through in hopes of you purchasing the vehicle from them. But please if it's 7:00pm and you have a pregnant woman who is saying she's starving and her 20 month old is screaming because she is also hungry, please don't keep them another 30 minutes. That pretty much will guarantee that you will not get the sale even if it's a great car.

On the other hand, if the same 20 month old hugs the car salesman at the end of the experience, you do win brownie points. Part of why I was strongly considering buying the suburban was that the car salesman and other staff had been so wonderful to Genevieve.