Car Shopping

Shopping for a new car is one of the things I hate worst than anything. Actually it's not so bad sometimes if your just going out and buying one but it sucks when you have a trade in. So, yesterday Annette got her other Christmas present, a brand new 2008 Honda CRV EX-L in Glacier Blue Metallic. I really needed to get rid of my 2004 Ford Truck because it was getting too many miles on it so we traded it in. I plan on driving Annette's 2004 F150 for a while then I'll probably trade it for a new one.

She was so undecided, at first she wanted a white one and they didn't have any. (That was last week) Then Friday she decided that she might like the blue. Then when she was running on the River Trail on Saturday she saw a Saturn VUE and really liked the looks of it. So I told her to swing by and look at the blue Honda on the way home and if she liked it we would get it. So she did and she liked it but also liked the green. That triggered the fun part for me. I had to get my truck cleaned out to trade it in.

This entailed removing my Sirius Satellite Radio, removing my Ham/Fire Department Mobile radio, removing my two way antenna, removing the wiring to the radios, removing the Satellite antenna, bike rack, and tool box along with all the other junk, paperwork etc in my truck. I got that done within an hour probably. Much easier to take out than install.

When Annette got home and I was finished we decided we had to look at the Saturn VUE. So we went by the Saturn of Little Rock dealership and took a test drive in a white one. The outside looked very good, and so did the inside but nothing really fit like the CRV did. We had previously test drove the CRV. Annette did do a test drive of the Saturn but found more negatives than positives. So it was on to Russell Honda to see Stan.

Stan is not your average car salesman. He is very nice, no pressure and tells it like it is. We have had friends and family buy several cars from him and it was always a good experience. After we got to the dealership Annette had to make her decision. Was it going to be the Glacier Blue or the Green? I think I did all the work for Stan as I had to pull each one out in the sun so she could look and decide. The blue ended up being the final decision. It has a grey leather interior, sunroof and all the buttons. Of course it had the required "heated seats". This is a female runners must have evidently.

The new Honda CRV

I ended up taking a small hit on my trade in but after the discounts on the CRV it really wasn't that bad. It seems like anytime I trade something in I feel like I have just been raped but there is not much you can do. High mileage gas guzzlers just are not big sellers on the used market these days. The good thing about a Honda is that trade in values are very very good and the overall cost of ownership over a period of 5 years is about $15,000 less than the competition. This is the first ever new foreign vehicle I have bought and so far it seems to be a very good decision. So now all I have to do is put all my stuff in Annette's old truck. Lots of work to do there.