The Car I Never Knew I Wanted

So as my family and friends are probably aware, I've been looking for a car for a couple months now or possibly a little longer. I love love my Mazda Protege5 but with the miles on it creeping up (almost 220,000k now) I just had to have something with less miles for all my roadtrips. I need to feel confident driving out of town , esp on roadtrips where Tony isn't with me. 

(carwash time!)

 

That being said, I owe a huge thank you to my Tony, my dad and Tony's uncle Dan in particular (and all the other friends who had an eye out for me too) in helping me by sending me links for cars all over the west coast.  I had finally narrowed it down to a Toyota Matrix as my first choice, Pontiac Vibe and the Nissan Versa. Once a hatchback owner, always a hatchback owner. I can never go back to a regular looking type car. I dont know.

So these 3 cars are what I had been focused on looking for. Just this past Thursday , Tony sent me a link for a car I had never considered, and honestly , I only glanced at the link because I was really busy and figured I'd look at it more that night.  I forgot, and finally looked at the link with pictures the next morning. Tony was at home because he was sent home from work on Thursday for being sick.  He slept in and then went to a couple car places looking at this car once he saw I had texted him saying that I actually liked it and wouldnt mind test driving it. He was not able to find the car though, a location in Sandy and then the one in Murray were both unable to find the car and said it must have been sold. 

I got off work and we went down to Larry H. Miller Chevrolet in Murray where Tony had been talking to someone there about a couple used cars. When we went back in again, the car I liked was all the way down in Provo and ended up being more expensive than we originally thought so we left and started driving back home. Then we saw Larry H. Miller Used Car Supermarket and pulled in - right next to the car we thought had been sold! I hurried inside and got the attention of a sales guy and he went with us for a test drive. As I drove it down the street it felt so smooth, no weird noises or knocks and no crazy blind spots.  As we were about to get on the freeway I had such a good feeling about this car and knew that it was the one I was meant to get.

This all happened around 7:30 and we didnt leave the car place until shortly after 10pm! We were able to get them to agree to us taking it to a mechanic of our choice in the morning to make sure everything checked out ok. If it didn't, they were willing to to fix it or we could walk away from the agreement without any penalties. Pretty awesome. I was a little nervous that the mechanic would find something wrong but was honestly I still knew this is the car I was getting and deep down I knew nothing majorly wrong would be found.

I ended up finding a shop that would do an overall check of the car for only $40 (nicer than the $80 I paid before for a different car in American Fork!). I went in to work for a few hours and Tony so kindly took the car to get the inspection. The mechanic was very impressed of how well the car had been taken care of and said the car was a steal at the price it had been posted online for.  The only thing it will need eventually is new tires but that was it! I was super stoked. This meant I got to keep the car.

It still doesnt really feel real, I feel like I am driving a rental car I am going to have to return. But nope! It's really mine and I hope it lasts me a long time. Car shopping on a budget is the worst! 

So check it out - here's what I got!

-- Introducing the 2006 Chevy HHR --

It has a couple small dents and scuffs in the paint but I dont care because so

does my Mazda and I still love it.

The back - so much space for camping, traveling, an air mattress and more

Here's a closer view

I've already been thinking about a name for my car and what the 'theme' is going to be. I think I am done with cherries for awhile.  There is a cute store I found on Etsy that does custom car seat covers. That'd be cool! Looking at maybe sewing my own. So many ideas. 

I'm feeling so grateful and blessed that this is the car I ended up with. That we were able to find it even though we thought it had been sold. That the price was in my range and it will have affordable payments. That it passed inspection & got a 'huge thumbs up' from the mechanic. This car will be perfect for pulling the teardrop camper once we get a tow hitch put on and we really wanted a car that could that. It has some fancy features that I am excited to use. All in all I think it is the best match for what I need in my life right now.