Our New to Us Car

Some months, well actually years, ago we began a quest for a new to us vehicle. We had certain requirements of this vehicle. It must have room for the family, which limited us to vans, minivans, and certain SUVs with a third row. It also much have better than 25mpg fuel economy, which basically narrowed it down to just tow vehicles. The Mazda 5 and the Toyota Highlander Hybrid. We looked into the Mazda 5 first, since it cost less. For a while we felt this would have to be the car, but God blessed us with some extra money, so we began looking for a Highlander Hybrid within our budget. Seeking a very nice car costing less than $25k in an economy where everyone wants the best fuel mileage is a difficult task. We found several prospects in the past few months, but they were sold before we could even call about them.

We also found several that were black, and I really didn’t want a black vehicle after the last one. I really didn’t like the fact that you could wash and wax the car and have it looking dirty in minutes. There were some around that were great deals, but priced closer to $30k, which we could afford but I just didn’t want to spend that much on a car at this point in my life.

A few days ago I had all but given up hope. I did the math on the fuel savings and just couldn’t justify the cost we would have to pay for the hybrid, so I began a search for the regular highlander, figuring I’d start researching fuel economy again and wanted to use that as a base comparison. Then I saw 3 vehicles returned with the hybrid engine on the regular Highlander search. All 3 were in the price range, one was white, not the worst but not the best, one was black, which I skipped automatically, and one was blue. The exact color I really wanted. I know that color is the least determining factor, but the mileage was well under my max (52k) and the price was great ($21k) so I contacted the dealer to verify it had the third row (once before I though I found the perfect vehicle, but it didn’t have the third row as advertized). Oh Happy Day! It had the seating we needed. Teh car fax was available and all maintenance was done at the dealership and recorded. This vehicle sounded perfect, so we drove over 2 hours just to look.

Fortunately we found everything to be exactly as we required, maybe not every bell or whistle, but everything we needed. It took forever to get the paper work done, with drive time it took nearly 12 hours to complete the purchase and return home, but we have a new to us vehicle. Here are a few pics I took this morning when the sun came mostly out of the clouds.