Fix or Repair Daily

I have vehicle envy right now. Every once in a while, my current vehicle gets to the point where I get this itch to ditch it and get a new one. Have you seen the LG washer commercial where the woman dreams of destroying her old washer in order to be able to get a new one? Well, I've started having those fantasies (note: if something DOES happen to my car in the near future--a tree falls on it, a sudden hailstorm squashes it like a bug, a freak tornado whisks it away to Kansas--I assure any and all insurance adjusters who stalk me and find this blog that I had nothing to do with it!!).

We bought our first Ford right after my husband moved to Connecticut in 1998 (I moved later, but that's a story for another day). OK, he bought it, and told me later. During our (large)-dual-income-one-kid period, this was not really unusual or a big deal, and he had asked me about it beforehand. He just didn't wait for the official concurrence. He traded in his Volkswagon Cabriolet sport coupe for a Ford Explorer after he decided that the combination of being out of warranty, not liking the service at the (then) one local VW dealership, and slipping on icy roads in October did not bode well for his sporty little pre-kid Grapemobile (yes, reader, it was PURPLE). It was a wise transaction, and the only lingering bit of annoyance I hold is the fact that he had conned me into trading in MY Saab 900S for our minivan because he really wanted to keep the sports car, and then, less than a year later, he got rid of it. I mean, I gave up my heated leather seats and sporty spoiler for this?

Our second Ford came about by happenstance. We had decided to get rid of the Dodge, as we did not really need two large vehicles, and the Explorer was, by far, a "keeper." So, I started shopping for a New Beetle. The terms of the loan from our credit union were extremely good, but the trade-in would have negated it (there was a minimum loan value), Beetles being not that expensive to begin with. So, we decided to sell the Dodge ourselves. Right about then, Consumer Reports rated the 1996 Dodge Grand Caravan as one of the worst deals in used cars (which was true--as I mentioned, Moby was a lemon). Plus, the husband I married--the one who subscribed to Smithsonian and National Geographic--started subscribing to Motor Trend and Car and Driver. I suppose this was his mid-life crisis. A wad of Navy severance pay and Moby in hand, my husband went to his trusty Ford salesman and purchased a 25th anniversary edition Mustang convertible, trading in Moby for $8000, which was far more than he was worth. We call it Convertible Summer: my husband was out of the Navy and very happy in his new job; I was preparing to get out; we were renting a home at the time, having sold our house in Virginia; and we had one easy-breasy toddler child. It didn't last long, but it was certainly fun while it lasted. That fall, he went back to his same trusty Ford salesman and sold back that Mustang for only $1000 less than he'd paid for it. So, we essentially laundered The Great White Whale for $7000, in a deal that I don't think we'll ever repeat in this lifetime. The proceeds of the sale were the down payment for the house I'm sitting in now.

So, now we're on our third Ford. We bought the Windstar when I was pregnant with Child Number Three (trading in the Explorer, which we really liked--it wasn't big enough for two carseats and three kids, though). It's been paid off for over a year and, like any six year old vehicle, it has its share of quirks, the biggest being that, despite repeated repair attempts, the internal lights don't work and neither does the now-totally-useless entertainment system (our number one suspect is the mouse that my husband trapped in the car a few years ago). It's a little disturbing to travel around at night and get in and out of the car with no cabin lighting. Unfortunately, our dear Beetle bit the dust two years ago, after setting the record for Longest Held Automobile, coming in at 8 years in service and over 150,000 miles traveled. My husband bought a 4WD Subaru Impreza for his commuter car, and it's a great little automobile. Luckily, he gets home from work in time for me to use it for my evening activities, so I don't very often have to drive the Lightless Wonder after dark. I say "unfortunately" because we really can't afford two car payments right now. Plus, we're at kind of a crossroads in the car-buying zone: we're almost to the point where there's only going to be one car seat to worry about fitting in.

That said, I don't know. My husband and I both remember car trips with three or four kids in the back seat of the car. Cars were wider back then, I guess. At least the seats were. Plus there was that really cool station wagon trunk to roll around in. We rented a medium-sized SUV on our trip to California, and the kids were crammed into the back seat like sardines. It wasn't very pleasant. But, they persevered and, really, we are considering buying a mid-sized hybrid sedan or SUV. In the meantime, we can afford to repair Wonder Windstar, and we're having fun looking at cars, discussing alternative energy sources, and seeing what we can see. Not to mention, dreaming about sudden car-destroying meteor showers!

And that's my silver lining for today.