It's Official

We have a van. I guess that means that we have officially moved into the PARENTHOOD stage. So here's the story...

This is/was our Camry. We bought this Camry a couple weeks before Brooklyn was born. We upgraded from a Chevy Prizm. We decided on the Camry because it was a little bigger, which was necessary for a car seat and stroller. Also, Toyotas are known for being very dependable and lasting a long time. We got the same year my mom has, which has never given her any trouble in its life. The car had a few cosmetic defects - scratches, a couple of tiny dents, a cracked console inside, a loose speaker cover, etc. We figured that was why we could afford it. It had very low miles for how old it was, which was the main selling point. I guess we should have realized that if a person doesn't take car of the outside of a car, he's probably not taking care of the inside, either.

A few of the problems that the Camry gave us: Blew a gasket on our way down to St. George. We were stuck in Beaver. Cost $400+ and a day of work/school. A bolt seized onto the tire. Cost $100. (Costco paid half because they should have been more careful.) Had to replace several belts, including the serpentine belt. Cost a few hundred. Catalytic converter went out. Cost $400. Two months after we replaced the catalytic converter, the check engine light came on again. Apparently the car had two catalytic converters and the second one went out. Cost would have been $500, but we didn't fix it. It needed to be done before the next emissions check. There was also some repair on the back wheel that needed to be done that we never did. Car had a slight oil leak, but nobody could seem to find the source. So for only having the car for 2 1/2 years, we spent quite a bit of money on it. And we knew we'd have to spend at least $500 more. We got the oil changed last Tuesday. On Friday, as Jason was coming home from work, the oil light came on. (Check engine light was already on.) He checked the oil and there was none, at least that showed up on the dipstick. So our minor oil leak had gone major. (You can see the oil dribbles leading up to it in the pictures.) We thought for sure that Jiffy Lube had done something wrong since they had just been in there. We took it back to them the next morning (Jason had to be late to work) and they said that everything was tight. Their records showed that the car had a leak when we brought it in. They had also written that there was a slight leak of transmission fluid and a knock in the engine. We were pretty devastated.

We were going to take it to the shop on Monday, but instead we talked about it and thought it might be better to just trade it in. It was getting a little small with two kids anyway. We went to the car dealership after Jason got home from work that day and found a car we liked. We wanted to trade in the Camry, but the dealer thought he could only get $2500 for it at auction. We really just wanted to be done with it, but he convinced us that we should try to sell it on our own. He said if we put it on KSL, we were sure to get more than that. So we left without a new car. The minute we got home, I went online and posted an ad while Jason went out to get pictures. Literally a minute later, we had a call. Yes, I fully disclosed the car's problems. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we priced it $1,000 below Blue Book, even in the condition it was in. Anyway, an hour later it was sold for $900 more than the dealer was going to give us. On Monday, we went back to the lot and bought this little beauty...

It's a 2008 Mazda5. We did a lot of research and this seemed to have the most features we wanted at a price we could afford. It's not nearly as big or expensive as a real minivan. Consumer Reports calls it a "micro-minivan." It seats up to six, but right now we've got the back row folded down to give us a nice amount of cargo room. We got it for about $3,000 under retail Blue Book, which was nice. Makes up for the hit on the Camry. So far we really like it. The only problem has been finding seat covers. The interior is really light so we definitely want to protect it. Right now, we take Brooklyn's shoes off every time we go anywhere because she likes to run her feet along the back of my chair. We thought we'd just go to Wal-Mart and pick some up. Well, the chairs have arm rests, adjustable headrests, and side airbags. All of those things make it difficult to find a cover. The seat covers that are made for it cost $340 for the six seats. OUCH!! So we're trying to find something else that will work. Any ideas??