Tag Archives: car shopping

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Not what I planned to buy for Christmas.

December 23, 2025 Rivergirl 24 Comments

Remember this?

My husband’s BMW, post deer collision.

The one that had more damage than we anticipated when it was towed to the shop.

The one the insurance company totaled.

😥

My husband was not pleased, he loved that car.

And so began the Christmas nightmare.

First step? An insurance paid rental.

They gave him a Volkswagen Atlas. I’d never heard of the model, but it was a full size SUV.

Plus side? The interior was extremely roomy with lots more space than we’re used to.

Down side? Annoying road noise from a 4 cylinder turbo that’s too small for the vehicle. The engine sounded like it was straining and you couldn’t pass a gas station because that thing had a thirst like a camel who just crossed the Sahara.

Humorous side? It had the smallest shifter I’d ever seen.

I mean really, really small.

It was basically a nub.

🤣

I’ll spare you the blow by blow of a week’s worth of shopping for gently used replacement cars with my husband, aka Goldilocks. He wanted another BMW X series but none of them were quite right. Wrong year, wrong color, wrong options, wrong mileage. He was never satisfied…. and after test driving an even dozen of basically the same vehicle? I’d had enough.

I found him this snazzy one…

But he hated the seats. No, not the color… the shape.

It was then I pointed him in another direction.

We’ve never owned an Audi…

But after test driving a few, my oh so picky husband was satisfied.

Finding one that had comfortable seats, acceptable options, a smooth ride and had just been given new tires, battery and brakes, we had a winner. After fierce negotiation which resulted in a $2,000 price drop, an extra 1,250 mile warranty and of all things a $100 gift card to TJ Maxx/Marshalls…

We pick up our Q5 tomorrow.

😊

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Let’s play.

November 24, 2023 Rivergirl 24 Comments

My husband and I differ greatly in this regard.

He bores easily with vehicles and is always looking for something different. No matter how much he likes what he’s driving, he’s the guy who stops on the side of the road whenever he sees something better for sale. Since he’s always on the move and puts high miles on his cars, we buy him used every few years.

I, on the other hand… heavily research, shop around and buy new every decade or so. My current ride is a much beloved 2014 Subaru Forester. Her name is Ethel and she only has 75,000 gentle miles. Every year my husband sputters about trading her for something newer, but the supply of new vehicles on the lots is still a problem here and I’m not buying anything I can’t personally test drive.

Ethel will be 10 next year so I suppose I’d better start researching.

How about you?

How old is your ride….

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And so it begins….

May 14, 2023 Rivergirl 17 Comments

Yes, after owning his current BMW sedan for barely 2 years my husband has decided he wants a new vehicle.

And by new… I mean my husband’s version of new which is usually 20 years old. He’s rough on vehicles and puts a lot of miles on them quickly so while I buy new, he doesn’t. Which is why he always wants a different one every few years. He plum wears them out.

His current car is a 2006 and since he’s on a BMW kick, the next one has to be as well. Tired of him constantly buying and selling I persuaded him to go a little newer this time. Ya know… preferably in the last decade. It was a struggle but I convinced him to draw the line at 2014. Nothing older.

I also leaned heavily on the idea of an SUV. River’s bad knee has had enough of climbing out of low slung rides.

We found this blue one..

And took her for a spin.

But the porridge was too hot.

We found this brown one and took her for a spin.

But the porridge was too cold.

We drove for 7 hours that day randomly hitting car dealers and private sellers. The result? Those two.

Apparently the BMW X3’s are a rare breed in our part of the world.

The search continues…

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Thanks again Covid 19.

October 21, 2021 Rivergirl 36 Comments

The husband has been trying to talk me into trading in my 2014 Subaru Forester for years now. But I love Ethel, and she only has 64,000 gentle miles, so I keep saying no.

Determined to prove that now is the perfect time to upgrade, I allowed him to drag me to a dealership to check out the 2022 models. There was only one problem.

There aren’t any 2022 models.

We checked 4 dealerships, but due to chip shortages and shipping backlogs the closest they could show me was a 2021 loaner of an entirely different grade.

The husband insisted we test drive it, which we did. And while I admit it was newer and a bit peppier than mine, I was less than thrilled with the new energy conserving process that shuts off the engine every time you idle at a stop light. While the actual shutting down was smooth, the restart was jarring and bound to be annoying over time. They told us we could disable the feature, but it would have to be done every single time we drove as it resets to default.

For $38,000 plus? I said no thanks. But the husband was pushing me to order a new one and wait God knows how many months to get it….

So he dragged me into the salesman’s office and had them appraise Ethel for a trade.

My Ethel.

I understand she’s 7 years old.. but she has low mileage and is loaded (with heated leather seats, back up camera, Nav and panoramic moon roof). My absolutely perfect Ethel… who Kelly Blue Book says has a trade in value of $16,500 and a private sale value of $17,800?

They offered us $10,000.

And that was all it took for my husband to be insulted, leave and stop badgering me to trade my vehicle.

Thank you Covid 19. Your virus induced shortages actually benefitted me this time around.