so, for the past two weeks we have been bumming my dad's truck off him. can i just tell you how stupendous my dad is? didn't even flinch when he knew we needed wheels. now, had it been hunting season or race season the story may have ended differently.... heehee! i say that jokingly b/c he said it jokingly to us... i think. :) he bummed rides off my uncle mitch, my mom came down to pick him up from work, and i'm pretty sure he stole my cousin's car at one point... sorry, aus! :) and we rode to church crammed in the truck. actually, to fit us all in was quite cozy. my kids are little and the truck is quite spacious. anywho.... we were searching the internet for hours on end trying to find a cheap used car to fit our budget and nathan's need for space. you'd think this would be a quick and easy task. i mean, i live in the MOTOR CITY! but alas.... it is one of the more difficult things i've had to shop for. the qualifications were the kicker. cheap. used. spacious. lowish miles. did i mention cheap? yeah, if you mention that to car dealers they tend to get surly. i searched locally. i searched a bit further out. and then i started searching coast to coast. by the end of the first week i thought my eyes were going to start bleeding from staring at the computer for so long.
the second week started with a glimmer of hope. i found some cars locally that would have stretched the budget, but i figured we could have made it work. first stop. melvindale. don't knock it. melvindale has been good to me this year. and then i took a look at the car they had there.... melvindale had NOT been good to this poor thing. mileage was a little high. the inside of the car had been treated like a jungle gym, and it was too much to pay for what we would get. back to the drawing boards. by the middle of the week, i was so sick of calling dealers and searching the internet i wanted to give up. nathan found a dealer that sold used police cars. they were located in chicago. i had two other cars that i liked. one in toledo and one in farmington hills. both of my picks were escapes. nathan had found an explorer. let's interject a thought bubble here for the purpose of understanding me and how i function in the role God has given me.... i don't do it well. submission is not something i have ever been good at. i like control. i like to be in charge. these have been some seriously brutal weeks. i have tried to give my opinion gently and without using phrases like, "well, that's just stupid." or, "what are you thinking?" or the ever popular, "no. that's not the way you should do it." i prayed a lot. and i mean A LOT. i know God used it to stretch me. i know satan tried to use it to tempt me. they both succeeded at times. i pray God did more than the evil one.
we talked about the escapes. both were higher mileage than the explorer. one was older by a year. they were both a bit higher in price... we hadn't attempted to haggle with the price tags yet. i really, really, really, thought the escapes would be better in the long run. nathan was sure the explorer would be a better purchase, and he talked with the guy at the bank who agreed to give us a lower payment b/c it had fewer miles. so, we decided to get a check for the explorer and take the train over to chicago...more on that later.... i was so nervous that it would be a horrible car and we would have wasted an entire day and upwards of $150 getting there and back on the train. but i tried to suck it up and not be a pessimist. i was really torn when we got there. there were lots of cosmetic things that i didn't like about it. worn spot on the driver's seat where the cops guns rubbed the cloth... nathan thought that was cool. :) loose panel from where they had to take part of the console out for cop type accessories. broken vent cover. missing over head light thingy b/c the cop light had been there. rear windows and doors that were not functional b/c they had been disconnected to keep convicts in... kind of cool to think it was a cop car now that we have it. :) but still..... i had that pit in my stomach thinking and wondering if these were big deals or non-issues. nathan was hoping i'd see it and have a definite feeling one way or the other. he told me just to be honest. but i froze. we were standing out there looking at it and i just couldn't say one way or the other. i wanted to say NO, but the main parts of the car weren't really that bad. the price was right and i just didn't know what to say. nathan started texting our neighbor adam and asked him a few questions about concerns i had.... the cosmetic stuff. he told nathan that he just so happened to have a vent cover that would match perfectly. they had a dead lincoln navigator at his work and the guys were divvying up parts that were no longer needed. he just so happened to have the right stuff for the windows too. i wasn't really receptive to it in the moment, but now i see that God had plopped those parts right into adam's bag for us. so after a test drive, a long talk, and a near tears discussion in the freezing sub zero weather chicago had in store for us... we plopped down a check and drove off the lot with our new-to-us explorer. i've only been in it that one time, and i can say this much.... it needs a little tlc in the smell department. the guys at the lot did a stellar job with their fake new car smell. in fact, they OVER did it. nasty stuff. and i might take some woolite out there. also, a magic eraser. but that's besides the point. we have a car now. and i am very thankful that God gave us one. and i'm thankful for the fun train ride i got to take. i got to hang out all day with just nathan. the train was super fun. we will definitely be doing that for a fun weekend with the kids. i got to finish my agatha christie christmas mystery my sis got me for this year. it took more twists than a corkscrew pasta. a fabulous mystery.
i imagine that train rides would inspire such good things from real writers. we went through a few small towns that were so perfectly right out of a book. i could just imagine the beginnings of loads of books as i looked out the window. it was fantastic! so, two long weeks come to an end and now we have a car that runs. praise the Lord. He is good.
5 comments:
I was reading this when I thought to text you about my ailments. :) glad to know you have a car. I can help you clean it if you want. Maybe this summer we can have a detail dora and doug day.
Matt and I had been praying for a van for our family for several months. We weren't sure how we'd find one in our budget...it just so "happened", that my sister Mary's husbands grandparents were getting rid of their minivan, as the grandpa had passed away and grandma didn't drive. It's a little older than I was hoping for, but only had 52,000 miles on it!!! They barely drove the thing. They only wanted the pay off on it...it's a great van, but cosmetically had a few things as well. They were smokers so the smell has been a small issue as well as a headlight and window motor on the drivers side. There is a small spot of rust as well. All said, our friend, who is also a great mechanic, assured us they are small and easy fixes. God does provide! And an added plus - the van has leather seats!
congratulations!
something i have found to fix smells...a bar or two of irish spring. just leave them out in the open, and in a few days-all is well! we purchased a smoker's vehicle pre-kids and after a few days, you couldn't smell it anymore! we did the same thing in the closets when we moved into our current house! =)
Was it a hassle to buy the car out of state? We have found a car that we are going to buy from friends in Delaware for our furlough and are trying to find out what we will need to do to title it in Michigan. Any info you can share with us will be helpful so we have all our ducks in a row when Tim goes down there to pick it up.
alice- it wasn't a problem at all. one thing i noted was that the dealer made sure we had a copy of proof of sales tax. since we were paying illinois tax they gave us a form stating what we had paid. we didn't have to pay anything in michigan. not sure what you might encounter buying from friends. and the title transfer...apart from spending a good hour at SOS... was quite easy and only cost the $15 title fee. the registration was obviously more, but we expected that. we did hit a small snafu when our title came in the mail. the bank was not listed as lien holder. but another hour at SOS and our corrected title is on the way. :) in fact, they didn't make me pay for the second title since it was their mistake. to my surprise, the lady didn't even put up a stink about it. i didn't have a copy of the original title proving that it was, indeed, their mistake. i thought that might cost me the extra $15, but she was very gracious. i will pray it is a smooth transition for you.
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