Car Shopping... UGH!!

Okay this may be more of a rant than a blog post but I promised I would talk about the things leading up to my departure for India so here it goes…

There are a number of things I hope to have done before I leave the country for almost a month. I want to make sure I have things in place not only for the weeks I am gone from church but I want things to be in good shape for Tami at home. We all know how there is always a list of things to do to keep your household running and in good shape. For us, it seems cars are always a necessary burden. We currently have three at our house. None of them are worth much or even in good running condition. In April coming home from a visit from Northeast Nebraska, Tami met a couple of deer up close and personal. It actually totaled our Honda Odyssey but it is still drivable as long as we don’t drive at night (no headlight). Keeli drives a ’98 Buick LeSabre. At about the same time as the deer incident, her car started leaking oil. Not just a small leak but almost to the point of adding oil as often as we add gas. We also have a ’07 Subaru. We have known for sometime the head gasket was leaking but we have been able to continue to use it as long as we keep watch on the oil. The air-conditioning was also not working. We took it to our mechanic to see if we could do all the repairs needed so we could at least claim we had one working car. Due to the number of miles on the Subaru (191,000) the repairs are far to expensive and our best option was to trade it off. So if you have followed this long and probably boring story, the Boesigers should replace not one, not two but three cars. Our goal was to find at least one before I leave for India so Tami does not have to deal with adding oil or worse yet, breaking down alongside the road. Cars that need a little TLC are really the norm for our household so the LaSabre will not get replaced - we will just continue to baby it along (sorry, Keeli, no new car for you). So the search was on for a replacement for both the Subaru and the Odyssey.

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I need to preface this by saying, I know some people probably enjoy the idea of getting a new car. For Tami and I, it falls somewhere between cleaning the toilets and scooping manure! We started looking for a car last weekend. The extent of the search was driving through some big dealerships, not even getting out of the car. In fact at one dealership a group of salesman stood watching for victims… I mean customers and as we slowly drove by one of the salesman approached the car (while it was still moving) and I panicked and we drove off. We did finally get out of the car at a lot where the owner was very low key and gave us space. The next option was to come home and do a little searching online. We found 3 cars at one lot and decided to try again on Tuesday. After spending 3 grueling hours, driving 4 different cars and haggling we found something we really liked. We didn’t buy it that day, we needed time to crunch the numbers and to decide if this was the right choice for us. Of course the salesman was pressuring us to at least put a deposit on the vehicle. We gave him the bottom line, to which he was pretty certain the manager would not go that low and he refused to even take the offer to the manager because we weren’t committing to the sale. Funny thing, before we walked out the door, he said the manager approved the price we asked for and would honor it for 24 hours. We decided to take the deal because in reality it was a good deal but MAN… do we hate the process.

So I can leave the country knowing Tami has a reliable car AND I can look forward to going through the process of buying a car one more time when I get home to get a replacement for the van. There are still many things I wish I could say will be done before I leave but let’s be real, keeping up with your job, home, cars and life in general is a never ending job. BTW... two weeks from today, I will be landing in India! WOW!

Until next time!

Kevin

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