With baby #3 due in December, it was inevitable that we were going to have to get either a large SUV or a minivan. We have been weighing the pros and cons of both, mostly discussing cost, gas mileage and how easy/hard it would be to get three kids in and out of.
I honestly had convinced myself that we were going to get a Honda Odyssey and I had even stopped by our local Honda dealer and asked the salesman to keep an eye out for a 3-4 year old Touring, black with beige interior. I have driven Honda's forever and was just thinking it would be the easiest transition from my Acura MDX, which I LOVED by the way!
This past Thursday, we were having dinner at Papa's and Beer and when we were leaving, I told Danny we should just drive by the Toyota dealership to see if they had anything we would be interested in. They were about to close, but I still got out and peeked in a few windows. They had several Odysseys and Sienna's, but the one Odyssey was blue and the other black one they had wasn't a Touring. They had a few Sienna's that were basic with cloth interior, one Limited and one XLE Limited. I know absolutely nothing about Toyota's and their model letters, but the salesman told me before I hit the lot, that the XLE Limited would be the closest thing to my MDX.
I was pretty impressed with the XLE Limited, the only thing I didn't care for was that fact that it was a 2004, and I was really hoping to get into something newer, oh, and the fact that it was white and I really wanted a black van.... at least this would make it look a little sportier, right?
When I got back to the car to tell Danny about the available cars, I mentioned this one, that it was loaded, only had...get this...
39,000 miles (that's 6,500 a year), and was about $10,000 less than we thought we would end up spending. I sat with Ben in the car while he and Owen went to take a look and when he got back, we discussed how this would actually save us money and how we would be getting everything we needed in a van.
As soon as we got home, we called our neighbor, who works there, and he offered to go get the van right then and bring it home for us to test drive, look over and keep over night. He wasn't able to get in touch with his boss, so he ended up bringing it by first thing Friday morning. He sat in the house with Owen and Ben while I took it for a ride through the cul-da-sacs and fell in love! It was like a brand new car and drove like a dream!
I was sold!
Then, we noticed it didn't have a DVD player and I immediately lost interest.
Donald said he'd ask his boss to have one installed for us since it was advertised as having one.
When he got back to work, he called me right away and said the deal was done, but there was another buyer there making an offer and I needed to bring my car in for appraisal before anything could be set in stone. I cleaned out a million toys,book, sippy cups, cd's and dvd's, loaded up the boys and drove as fast as I could to the dealership.
Next thing you know, I am sitting at the dealership from 11-2:30 with 2 kids and no lunch waiting on everything to get finalized and for the banks to get back from lunch to approve the loan. By then, Danny was there for us to sign the MDX over and to take possession of our new, but slightly used
SWAGGER WAGON.
My Entertainment system will be installed Wednesday. My neighbor is going to take it in for me and bring it home when it's done. Now, that's neighborly service!
-----
My favorite features:)
- Power sliding doors and trunk
- CD Changer (My MDX only had a 1 disc changer)
- Sonar sensors (I had a rear cam before that I loved, but these will work just as well).They even slow you down when you're using cruise control and get to close to the vehicle in front of you. This has never been an issue for me, but knowing that it will keep Danny from driving us into someone's backseat, gives me peace of mind!
- a million storage compartments
- a little fold down mirror that makes seeing the kids so much easier
- tinted windows...major swagger points!
- built-in sun shades (had these in my Audi and lOVED them!)
- it tells me the name of the songs on the radio, and since I am getting old and way out of the loop, this will help me stay in the loop when I am not listening to Laurie Berkner and other kids music. I had this is the Audi , and loved it!
- There's plenty of room for baby #3 now and this is one less thing I have to worry about!
- It was less expensive than we thought a van was going to cost us. Our car payment actually went down almost $100!!!! (So I took the kids to Brixx for a late lunch and then we hit up Target and Old Navy to spend my savings.)
- It has low miles and looks like there has never been a kid in it (and as much as I love kids, they are dirty, makes messes, spill things, and their car seats leave indentions in the seats. Now, my kids get to do all this....
Thing's I'll miss about my MDX...
- Having a Navigation System. I actually used this a lot.
- back up cam
- that it was an SUV
- it was lighter and had a little more power
- the trunk space
Other than that, I am super happy with our purchase and although it's white, and I am having to wait a few days to get the DVD player installed, I feel pretty confident we made the best decision for our little growing family!
