Downsizing – Vehicle Edition

Since The Wife and I are both teleworkers, we’ve been discussing going down to one vehicle. Mostly, that has been discussing of if we should sell/give my Xterra and just keep her CRV. Part of the issue is that I really didn’t want to give up the Xterra. Yet, we kept asking ourselves the question of why we were still holding on to it.

A couple of weekends ago, just out of curiosity, I looked up the values of both cars. That changed the conversation. Her Honda was worth almost as much as we paid for it. We discussed it more over dinner. Could we just sell both cars and get one we both really wanted?

We looked at a bunch of cars in our new “price range” and tentatively agreed on a Subaru Forester. The Wife started calling around. No one around us had new ones, and used ones were sparse on the ground. We did test drive one just to make sure that the Forester was at least comfortable to drive. The salesperson was clear that if we wanted one in the pipeline, it would be a month – maybe six weeks. Two to three months minimum if we wanted to order one. We looked at the used ones on the lot. The price difference was about two grand between the new ones in the pipeline and the used ones on the lot. And the used ones were 2019’s. Plus, the salesperson was kind of a dick.

We left talking about what should we do. Then we found a dealership with new ones in stock. There was just one small issue. It was about an hour and a half north of us. Still, they had the ones we wanted in stock. After work, we convoyed up.

We really liked the Forester we saw. Test drive confirmed we really liked it. The price was really at the top end of what we were willing to pay. The salesperson showed us a model that had just come in. I liked the green color, the fact that it had almost all of the same features, and was less expensive. We started running the numbers. Then it seemed to take a while. A lot longer than it should have. Finally, the salesperson comes over with a sheepish look on his face. It seems the green one was supposed to be in the loaner program and wasn’t even supposed to be on the floor. So, we were back to original car. Still doable.

After a long wait and some initial paperwork, we’re off to the Financing Lady. She explains that some of the long wait was due to The Wife missing a word on the address on her license (something we get to correct) and they can’t seem to spell my first name correctly. Then, she proceeds to inform us of a couple of items she discovered when going through our files. Since we were buying from the same chain that sold us The Wife’s Honda, the Financing Lady found out we were due money back from a maintenance contract and other items. Did we mind that she put all of that towards the down payment? Um, no. That was very helpful. We start signing. I comment on the picture of her cats on her file cabinet. This led to an ongoing conversation between The Wife and the Financing Lady about how to take care of kitties. As we were nearing completion, the Financing Lady asked if we brought in the Xterra. Yes, we did. How does it run? Pretty good, why? It seems the Financing Lady is looking for something like that. I’m pretty sure that my old Xterra won’t even hit the market.

By the end, it was nearing 11 at night, and we still had better than an hour drive home. We were all smiles as we drove it back home.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now a single car family. And that car is hereby designated the Ward Wagon!