New Car

So many of you know that our poor little Acura is heading to the grave and has been for a while. This car has been in my family since I was in kindergarten and then I inherited it my freshmen year of college. The repairs for the car to pass Virginia inspection are going to cost almost twice as much as the car is currently worth. SAD. Because of this we decided the time has come to get a 'new to us' car. We received a sizable amount on our tax return and felt it was okay to use that money to buy a car.

We'd been searching for months to get an idea of what kinds of cars were in our price range and then narrowed down the choices to what we liked. We were pretty set on getting some sort of Subaru Outback and could really only afford the 2000-2001 years. We found one at a dealership close to us for a decent price. It was green and what I would consider 'bare bones' or nothing shmancy. Which was fine. Anyhoo, we took it into a mechanic and they said there were a few repairs and because of them we were able to bargain down the price with the dealer. All was well, we purchased the car and then had an emissions test done. We knew it wouldn't pass because of the issues stated by the mechanic. Unfortunately, we also noticed the heat gauge heading towards hot and then staying there. We took it back to the mechanic and they drained the radiator fluid and put it back in with out air bubbles. They said it should run fine, but if the heat gauge started acting funny again, then we had a bigger issue on our hands. SO! After owning the car 3 days and taking it to the mechanic 3 times, we took the car back and, thankfully, got our money refunded.

The search was on again. This time PC found a schmancy 2001 Audi A4 wagon. It's white. Fully loaded. Leather seats, heated, great stereo, power everything, sun roof, etc. We went through the whole process again (test drive, mechanic, negotiations, test drive again) and eventually decided to buy it. I absolutely love driving it. I feel so dang spoiled when I'm inside. PC loves me. But the best part was that we stayed within our budget. Yay for new cars!!