Hey, friends! It’s Sunday and I’ve decided to devote each Sunday this month (well, all but the last Sunday in November, as that’s my birthday!) to a stream-of-consciousness post. The challenge: to write without a specific purpose. I just want to discuss what’s on my mind right here and now. Let’s dive in!
I’m really excited about getting a new car. My current vehicle is a 2005 Scion xB (the car that looks like a toaster!) and it’s served me incredibly well in the many years I’ve had her. She’s never needed a repair of more than a few hundred dollars and she’s got 130,000 miles on her. But many things drive me crazy about her. Like:
- Filling up my car with gas can be a frustrating experience because there’s something wrong with my gas tank in that the fuel pump will click off before the tank is full. This just happened today when I went to get gas and I had to figure out the right way to tilt the fuel pump to direct the flow of gas in a way that won’t cause the fuel pump to click off. I dream of the day when getting gas isn’t a frustrating experience!
- My power windows are losing their… power, I guess? They will roll down easily, but getting them back up is not so easy. It usually takes a few minutes of continually pushing the button and the window going up inch by inch. What this means is that I can’t ever use a drive-thru car washing station! You have to put your car window down to pay at the station right before the car wash, but then I can’t trust that my windows will go back up before the water starts! (Yes, I could just get out of my car to pay, but that’s annoying.)
- I don’t have Bluetooth. To listen to my podcasts on my phone, the volume has to be at the highest setting and I have to put my phone in a cupholder to amplify the sound. Pretty janky.
- Using my trunk takes two hands these days because a mechanism in the trunk lock is broken, so I have to use one hand underneath the bottom of the trunk to lift it up while my other hand is lodged under the handle of the trunk to push the lock to open it. Sounds complicated? That’s because it is. I never use my trunk anymore because it’s too annoying.
Those are just some of the annoyances I have with my current car. I’m just ready for a new car and I know it’s the right time to make this purchase. A lot of the things I want with a new car are just stuff that comes standard in cars these days, like Bluetooth, a backup camera, a power liftgate, etc. I’m not looking for the flashiest car—truly anything will be an upgrade to what I have right now.
I’ve also never had a new car. I never thought I could have a new car. Growing up poor, we had our fair share of embarrassingly ugly and decrepit cars. There was the car that a friend said she thought was going to fall apart every time I got in it. There was the gray station wagon with two huge dents on its right side. There was the time my mom drove a church van for a while—that was fun. There was the little Ford that had rope holding its hood closed. There was the car that would take forever to back out of a parking space because of how many times it would stall when in reverse.
So I’m excited about the chance to have a new car. And I’m also really grateful that I can. I’m grateful that I have the means to make this happen for me, that I will be able to put down a sizable down payment, that I won’t have to worry about affording a car payment. I don’t take that for granted at all.
Getting a new car is so much fun! Good luck car shopping – I’ve heard it is tough out there.
I can soooo relate! My old car was 20 years old. The engine was perfect, but all sorts of other things were going wrong (like the door handles kept snapping off, stuff like that.) I didn’t get a brand-new car, but it’s new enough that it has bluetooth and other things that seem fancy to me, even though a lot of people would think it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles.
It’s funny how happy a “new” car can make you! I’m excited for you- can’t wait to hear what car you get.
I don’t really care about cars much, but yeah, having something that doesn’t fall apart is a minimum requirement LOL We bought our current car in 2012 when it was 1 year old and it does have BlueTooth, but no rear-camera or power liftgate or anything like that. I am excited for your upgrade!
I was going to say, a lot of the things you want will come standard and it will feel (and be!) so luxurious!!!!! I grew up similarly and never thought I’d have a new car. I’ve never had a brand new car, but I’ve had nice used cars and it’s so nice to rely on it.
I got my Camry in 2016 and it was such an upgrade from my 2003 Accord. I was most excited about Bluetooth and the back-up camera! Now we will look to sell my Camry when we buy a Rav 4 prime. But it looks like we will sell it for about what I bought it new which is bananas. I got a really good deal on it new as it was one of the oldest cars on the lot. And the used car market is so hot that you don’t save all that much by buying a used car. And we have about 30k miles on it despite having it for 5 years! We barely drive which is nice. There are money podcasts who will say to never buy a new car but it has worked out for us. I had my Honda Accord for 12 years and would have kept driving it but the transmission went out. Phil has a Corolla, I think he got it in 2013 or 2014. It also has about 30k miles on it! So we will keep that car and replace mine w/ the Rav 4. I haven’t minded driving a sedan with 2 kids but it will be nice to not have to bend down to put kids in the car and I also wish our sedan had heat and a/c vents in the back. The backseat gets super hot/cold, especially when the baby is rear-facing. So I am hoping to Rav 4 has vents in the back, but I think that is pretty standard on SUVs!
Oh, what fun! I hope that you are able to find the car you want, and in the not-too-distant future. My car is only 9 years old and I am hoping to drive it for a very, very long time. I also do not drive much, so that helps a lot. (Well, the exception is 1-2 road trips/year, but since I drive a total of about 10 miles/week, most weeks, it works out well…)
Can’t wait to see what you choose!