big time, my car is getting bigger
In the winter of 1996, mj2q went home for christmas break, and came back the next semester with a car, a brand new 1997 Saturn SL2. The next spring, I learned to drive stick shift on it on an overnight trip to Harrisburg. Highway driving was fine. Toll stops were... interesting. It was his daily driver for a couple years while I finished school.
When we moved into a house in 2000, we decided we needed a second car for daily commutes, and acquired a used Honda. But since the Honda only had two doors, the Saturn remained the default carseat car, and since J's (and then D's) daycare was on the way to my work, it became my daily driver, and our roadtrip car, for when we did things like go to see the grandparents in CT.
Four years later, it made sense to split the cars by leaving me with the Saturn. I moved closer in to the city, and my daily commute was almost entirely driving the kids around. As they grew older, and they both started school and their school got closer, and our options increased, my need for it decreased. It served me well for what I needed it for, got its share of scratches and bumps, had a couple accidents, but still kept going. For years I'd been thinking, "hrm, I want a new car," but couldn't really justify a big purchase when I still had a decent running vehicle. Even when the car spent time in the mechanic's for major things, I still thought to myself, "well, this cost is far cheaper than new car payments would be."
When xuth moved in last year, he came with his own (2001) Saturn SL2. With neither of us having a daily car commute anymore, our driving has dropped down to almost nothing, except for our roadtrips.
...Roadtrips which often involve tents and sleeping bags, stilts and boffer swords, clothes and coolers of food. And still require passenger space to hold up to 5 people. We've managed a year+ with squeezing things in, usually involving some combination of trunk tetris playing, creative use of the roof rack, borrowing space in other people's cars, borrowing other people's larger cars, or just taking both of ours. It's been entirely obvious that we Needed Something Bigger.
And so began a casual search for something that had plenty of trunk space WITH passenger space, and wasn't an SUV. We had our goal narrowed down pretty well and were waiting until financial outlook was better, when both the income and a reasonable car turned up a short range of time, just in time for our next big camping trip.
And so, meet the newest member of our driveway:
It's a 2006 Subaru Outback, color "Brilliant Silver" (no joke), 57k miles, owned and driven by a single, incredibly meticulous, very nice older gentleman who we arranged a private sale with. It's the first car I've Bought! I'm very excited. It's kind of a boring color, but everything else looks like it will serve us quite well, hopefully for a good, long time. The only option that I'm seriously sad about is the lack of aux input, so there's a good chance we'll try to do something about that.
Of course, now we have three cars, two drivers, and still zero daily driving commutes. Is anybody interested in a dinged up, rattly-but-still-runs, almost-15-year-old manual transmission Saturn sedan? I'm happy for someone to take it off my hands for cheap, otherwise it's going to be donated somewhere useful.
When we moved into a house in 2000, we decided we needed a second car for daily commutes, and acquired a used Honda. But since the Honda only had two doors, the Saturn remained the default carseat car, and since J's (and then D's) daycare was on the way to my work, it became my daily driver, and our roadtrip car, for when we did things like go to see the grandparents in CT.
Four years later, it made sense to split the cars by leaving me with the Saturn. I moved closer in to the city, and my daily commute was almost entirely driving the kids around. As they grew older, and they both started school and their school got closer, and our options increased, my need for it decreased. It served me well for what I needed it for, got its share of scratches and bumps, had a couple accidents, but still kept going. For years I'd been thinking, "hrm, I want a new car," but couldn't really justify a big purchase when I still had a decent running vehicle. Even when the car spent time in the mechanic's for major things, I still thought to myself, "well, this cost is far cheaper than new car payments would be."
When xuth moved in last year, he came with his own (2001) Saturn SL2. With neither of us having a daily car commute anymore, our driving has dropped down to almost nothing, except for our roadtrips.
...Roadtrips which often involve tents and sleeping bags, stilts and boffer swords, clothes and coolers of food. And still require passenger space to hold up to 5 people. We've managed a year+ with squeezing things in, usually involving some combination of trunk tetris playing, creative use of the roof rack, borrowing space in other people's cars, borrowing other people's larger cars, or just taking both of ours. It's been entirely obvious that we Needed Something Bigger.
And so began a casual search for something that had plenty of trunk space WITH passenger space, and wasn't an SUV. We had our goal narrowed down pretty well and were waiting until financial outlook was better, when both the income and a reasonable car turned up a short range of time, just in time for our next big camping trip.
And so, meet the newest member of our driveway:
It's a 2006 Subaru Outback, color "Brilliant Silver" (no joke), 57k miles, owned and driven by a single, incredibly meticulous, very nice older gentleman who we arranged a private sale with. It's the first car I've Bought! I'm very excited. It's kind of a boring color, but everything else looks like it will serve us quite well, hopefully for a good, long time. The only option that I'm seriously sad about is the lack of aux input, so there's a good chance we'll try to do something about that.
Of course, now we have three cars, two drivers, and still zero daily driving commutes. Is anybody interested in a dinged up, rattly-but-still-runs, almost-15-year-old manual transmission Saturn sedan? I'm happy for someone to take it off my hands for cheap, otherwise it's going to be donated somewhere useful.