Hello Everyone! If you're in the DC Metro area, you woke up to a landscape of snow. So much for Spring, huh? I begrudgingly got ready for work, but it wasn't too bad because we got a new car over the weekend! In case you didn't know, Justin and I have been a one car household for the past few months. I know all of you suburbanites might be wondering how we are able to survive on just one car, but it's pretty easy given our situation. Justin uses the metro for work and the gym (he goes immediately after work). I on the other hand need a car during the week for my lengthy commute from our home in Capitol Hill to my job in Mclean, VA. Any other time we really need a car is when we're running errands on the weekend together. Living off of one car has been easy peezy.
In any case, with both of us using Justin's car, we were quickly realizing that the the good ol' FJ Cruiser (aka: Onyx) was no longer fitting our needs. The height and roof rack make it a pain to fit into certain city garages. The cab doors we're difficult to get people/things in and out of. Lastly, it was a gas guzzler, which made me (the primary driver of the car) have to fill it up every few days at the tune of $50+ per tank.
After much discussion, we settled on the Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited, if we could find one in our budget. We started our car search over the weekend and our first stop on Friday evening was Carmax. We went stopped by to get an trade-in estimate on the FJ Cruiser, and we surprisingly got a better number than we thought. FJ Cruisers seem to hold their value...probably because it caters to a niche market. Unfortunately, they didn't have any Highlanders that we liked on the lot, so we continued our search on Saturday and headed to the dealership. On our visit, we found a fully loaded silver Highlander Hybrid Limited on the lot. I had done a lot of research regarding negotiation and told Justin that we should be prepared to leave if the deal wasn't to our liking. Unfortunately, the low inventory of Highlander Hybrids put the bargaining power in the dealerships corner, so they weren't willing to budge from their asking sales price. Luckily, we used our handy "ace in our pocket" (i.e. the FJ Cruiser) and asked to see what they would take for it. After examining the FJ Cruiser, and crunching some numbers, they came back with trade-in amount that was nearly $2,000 more than what Carmax offered! The trade-in value of the FJ Cruiser calculated into the dealership's offering price for the Highlander Hybrid created a new offer that we could not refuse.
After sitting for several hours, we signed all the paperwork and bid adieu to our beloved Onyx. I'm sure he'll make some mud-boggling teen or extreme gentleman quite happy :)
And here we are with our new Highlander Hybrid--the Silver Bullet!
We still need to take it back to the dealership to get some minor scratches fixed, but we are satisfied with our first car purchase together! Or to put it more accurately, our first car purchase ever (because our parents had played the main role as purchaser in our prior vehicles)! Justin was sad for a day or so after we said our good-bye to his "man-chariot". He had that truck for over six years, and I can easily see how he got emotionally attached to the truck. After driving this car for a few days, I realize how much the Highlander fits our needs! There are ample windows so there are no blind spots. It's big enough to haul stuff from Costco or Home Depot, but not too big to parallel park on DC streets. The fact that it's a hybrid makes gas consumption a non-issue. We have third row seating for when we have out-of-town guests, or want to pile in the people. And we even have a DVD player which will be perfect for the little ones...
These little ones...commence gratuitous frenchie photos!
LOL! What did you think I was talking about? Kids? Hehehe...all joking aside, children ARE in our future, we just don't know exactly when as of yet. Whenever we do decide to have kids, at least we know we'll be equipped with the right vehicle. :)
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