My first American made car!!!

We got home on Thursday super late...so took our time getting our act together Friday to get out to do some car shopping. I needed time to re-group. Grammy came over  about lunch time so we could see what we could find. The kids were SUPER concerned that we wouldn't be able to go to church on Sunday without a car..and they do not sell cars here on Sundays- so we knew we wanted to find something on Friday or Saturday. If we didn't no biggie- we would figure things out. Thankfully Jeff is on his last week of summer break. We weren't sure what we were looking for- we knew we didn't want another Honda Odyssey. Of the years we could afford we found out transmission problems are a BIG problem. There was a class action suit against Honda because of them as well as a big article in the New York times about how many problems they have had with the transmissions. Before this all happened I would have sworn up and down that the Odyssey was the way to go when looking for a mini-van. Now...not so much!

So off we went to some dealerships...UGH I HATE CAR SHOPPING...I would rather someone beat me!!! I had a bad attitude the first day...we decided to look at anything with a 3rd row..and I wanted some cargo space. Any vans we looked into either cost more then we wanted to get a loan for or were trashy/smelly! So I was pretty against vans. Jeff wanted a Suburban but I wasn't sure about the size factor. I did tell him if we were going to get one it had to have 2 rows of back seats so that we would have seating for 8- if I was going to drive that big thing around I wanted to cram as many people in as we could!! I test drove a big red one that was very nice- they guy told us it was 14,000 but they may be able to come down to 10,000...I thought it was odd they could come down so low. We told him we would think about it and call him the next day. That night we got online and searched Autotrader.com and found that Suburban listed from that dealership for 9,900...WHAT!?? I HATE CAR SHOPPING!!!!

The next morning we were up and at-em again...we looked at a couple places. I test drove a GMC Envoy- it was very nice but the cargo space was nothing. As someone who would need to use the 3rd row all the time there is a slim to none chance I could ever grocery shop with the kids in tow. Even though I didn't love it, we put it on our short list because there was not much out there. People are just not trading in big cars these days because our pickin's were slim. The next couple places we went were totally honest and said they had nothing that fit what we wanted for the price we wanted...so we moved on.

Jeff had found a couple listing's for Suburbans in Castle Rock and Denver- so we made the decision to head up there. We test drove a very nice one in Castle Rock- the used car dealership was a bit low budget- but they were nice. After about 5 minutes in the car though we could smell it...the failed attempt to cover up the fact that the previous owner was a smoker. UGH- another one bites the dust! And up to Denver we head!! We found a listing on USAA.com for a nice Suburban in our price range. We went, we test drove, we haggled..and we purchased!! Our OTD price was a wee bit higher then we hoped..but they filled up the gas tank and it was everything we wanted!

And here she is!!! (I need to name her!)

We are very happy with our Suburban thus far..and know it will serve us well in the future. We are happy that it does have 8 seatbelts...I babysit a little gal 5 afternoons a week so I usually have 4 kiddos in the car..and we hope to grow our family in the future as well so this leaves us lots of room!!

And this is my very FIRST American made car- my first car was an OLD Toyota Corolla, my second was a Honda Civic hatchback, next was my Honda Civic Sedan, then my Honda Odyssey...I was pretty brand loyal! Hopefully American treats me right!!!