Car Shopping

Ever since I got to Vegas, we have been looking for a 2nd vehicle. Mostly been looking at Craislist. We were really interested in this one, so Saturday morning I took it to mechanic to have it checked out. I waited nearly 2 hours for them to look at the car, and when they finally did, the guy comes back in not 5 minutes later and says 'you will not buy that car the engine is crap' it's rotted, needs a engine assembly it would cost at least 3K to fix it, and then who knows what else is wrong... Then he charged me the whole 90 buck fee for the inspection - for just turning the car on and listening to the engine. The whole time I was there he kept calling me 'kiddo'. Grrr - I hate when I let myself be treated that way! I'm a smart, confident, soon to be 27 year old woman! I'm still angry at myself for not trying to lower the price. ugh.

So I returned the car and we're back at square one. We decide we're not going to find anything on craigslist in our price range, and that we'll go to a dealer, look for something a little more expensive, and finance some of it. The first place we went they tried to sell us a Ford Taurus that was out of our price range. They were crazy pushy and kept trying to make deals with us - it's hard to escape a 300 lb man in a baby blue linen suit... but this time I did much better and stuck to my guns and kept saying that it wasn't the car for us, especially since the mileage was only 21/26. So then he says, well if you pay a little less on the car, but have to spend a little more on gas, that will even out. And I said, NOPE! I'm a tree-hugger and using less gas is not just about money and we left - well sort of snuck out.

The next place we went just sucked, they tried to put us in a new car that was double what we were looking to spend. We went there because there had been an ad in the paper for a new Chevy Aveo for $7500 - apparently this price was after an assumed $2500 trade in and for a car with no air conditioning - who would possibly consider buying a car with no A/C in LAS VEGAS! Scammers....

So finally we wound up at Friendly Ford - and they were actually true to their name. Best car dealer experience I've ever had. They listened to what we were looking for and we got a decent deal on a '03 Ford Escort. It's 2 door, but we don't intend on putting carseats in it - but it does have LATCH - so if we had to put the boys in it, we could. It's a stick shift - which means we're going to have to get a babysitter just so Dan can teach me to drive it... but it's not urgent, as the main purpose of the car is a commuter car for him, and the mileage is rated at 28/34!

That is the story of yesterday, it was an exhausting day, and the boys were awesome. Thank goodness car dealerships all have helium balloons - that kept them very busy - trying to figure out why those balls were floating in the air... Hooray for a new car!