A New Car!

After a few months of dealing with trouble from our cars, we bought a new one yesterday. It is a 2009 Nissan Murano that is slightly used. From the CARFAX report, it looks like it was a rental car. We traded in James' 1997 Camaro. Parting with it was a little sad for both of us. It was the car James had when I met him and we left from our wedding reception in it. However, it didn't drive well on the ice and snow (which we have to deal with now in MO), and it needed new spark plugs. James called Firestone to see how much it would cost to replace them, and they said it would be about $500. The spark plugs are in a terrible place, and you have to take of bunch of parts off the car to get to them. So, we traded it in.

Here are a few photos of it.

These were taken in Little Rock, probably 2003 or 2004. We had a nice little snow fall.

These were taken at the dealership as we said our farewell.

This car buying experience was much better than our last experience. The last time we bought a car was in 2001, just a few weeks before we got married. We spent at least a couple of weekends driving around Monroe, LA going from dealership to dealership, pouring over Consumer Reports in print form, & scouring the newspapers. This time was much easier. Monday night we spent maybe an hour looking online at www.vehix.com and www.consumerreports.com Using Consumer Reports online is so much nicer than having the monthly mags pile up at your house.

We found the car that we bought at the dealer's own website. James called the dealership on Tuesday morning to verify that the car was still available, and made an appointment with a sales rep for 5 pm. It took about 2 & 1/5 hours at the dealership. So we spent a few hours over 2 days instead two whole weekends and who knows how many hours looking through printed Consumer Reports. The Internet can be a convenient thing!