New car!

You might remember about 10 months ago when I posted this. I was so proud of my beautiful sporty convertible until this happened almost 2 weeks ago. I have spent the past few days searching for the "perfect" car. After 4 days of spending a few hours going from dealer to dealer looking at cars and test driving ones that caught my eye. But as of yesterday there hadn't been the "perfect" car yet. Sure, there had been a few that were alright, but not the car. When I bought my Sebring, it was perfect...great car, great body, great price, great everything! I knew I only had my rental car until Thursday, so time was getting short for me to find a new car. I went out today knowing that, but not necessarily determined to buy a car, I didn't want to jump into anything just because of the rental car.

So my Dad and I drove out to Grand Rapids to check out a car lot that came recommended from some friends. There was one car there in my price range, and it was okay, but I wasn't sure about it. Then we headed out to Division, I had seen a car online that I wanted to stop and look at. But the car was no longer there, so we decided to continue to drive down the road and see if anything had changed since we had been out there on Saturday. So as we're driving, I pass this nice looking car with a great price tag on it. I quickly pulled into the lot and we got out to check out this car. The salesman came out and he struck up a conversation with us. I was very impressed with him, he had a great deal of knowledge and was not pushy at all. We ended up taking that specific car for a test drive. We got back, very pleased with the performance. We decided to try out another car on the lot that was also in my price range, but we were not as pleased with the second car. I gave Mike a call to get his opinion on the first car we looked at, he knows a lot more about cars than I do!

While I was on the phone, my dad spoke with the salesman about the car and what kind of price we could bargain for. I got off the phone and counted out some $100 bills (yeah, I felt pretty rich!) We made and offer, and received a counter offer. We countered the counter offer and it was accepted! I got an amazing deal!!! So now of course, I know you're waiting for pictures (unless of course you were sneaky and scrolled down already!)

So here is my beautiful new 2001 Dodge Stratus ES! It is in very good cosmetic condition (only a few spots that I bought some touch-up paint for). And it has a sunroof (one of my "wants"), a rear spoiler, a 4-disc CD player, and a remote start system! The car has only 1 downfall, it has quite high mileage; however, for the price we paid for it, if it will still run for 2 years it was worth it. The lady who owned it before me used it as a company vehicle, so it was regularly maintained (and her company paid for it, so she took excellent care getting everything done on time and keeping it tuned up). That is a very good thing, and usually prolongs the life of cars! I'm thinking this one is going to serve me very well. It runs like a charm!!!

The paint is real nice and shiny! It's my first car that isn't a shade of green!

The other neat thing about today is a short story about the man we bought this car from. We were sitting in his office and he offered us some water. The mug I was drinking from was from a Protestant Reformed Church. We got on the subject of churches and he goes to a PRC out that way. We casually mentioned that our former neighbors (and very good friends!) are also Protestant Reformed. His son asked their last name. I told him, thinking that the chances he knows someone who goes to a PRC out in Hudsonville were pretty slim. Turns out, our salesman married our friend's sister, so this family is related to our friends! What a small world!