Decisions

We ran our old car to death. It had 168,000 miles on it. The lights were so dim you could hardly see where you were going on a dark night. The turn signals only worked when they wanted to and the ABS light was on all the time. So was the check engine light. The windshield wipers wouldn't go down anymore when you turned them off. (That was embarrassing.) The rocker panels on the sides were pretty rusted out. The gas gauge didn't work. The blower for the air conditioner/heater was faulty and would only blow hard on high and then it ROARED! But it never failed to get us where we wanted to go so I'm not complaining. It just became time to buy another car.

We are aware that this is a terrible time to buy a used car but we just couldn't go into winter with that old Venture. And with being retired, I want to be able to travel to Virginia, Michigan, Kentucky, Nebraska, or Colorado by myself if I'm needed. So we started looking for a dependable car.

Our focus was on either a Honda Odyssey or a Toyota Sienna and we had a line on an '07 Odyssey with low mileage but that's pretty much all it had. We were a little disappointed when we test drove it but told ourselves, "Well, it's got everything we really need". Before we finalized that purchase, we looked around. We saw an '06 Sienna that was cheaper but I thought the air didn't blow REALLY cold and Mr. Right didn't like the well used look of the trailer hitch on the back. He wondered what kind of heavy pulling it might have done . We looked at some newer Siennas but couldn't find an agreeable price point. Then someone pointed out the Odyssey on the lot.

They brought it up for us and as I rode along while Mr. Right drove, I had this thought: THIS is our car. It had everything that we'd wanted when we first started talking about a car.

So we had a choice. This older (by two years) Odyssey with 12,000 more miles and for about $4500 less or the new barer bones Odyssey. And we chose the '05 with more miles.

Pretty much every car we've ever purchased, was chosen because it was a bargain. In other words, it wasn't really chosen it was just purchased. This car we chose with our hearts.

We've only had it a week but we LOVE it every single time we get in it.

I don't necessarily think we made the practical decision but I believe with all my heart that we made the smart decision.