This past weekend, the transmission of my 2001 Honda Odyssey died. The car has over 130,000 miles on it and has done a fairly good job raising our family. It sort of reminds me of the latest “Modern Family” episode (see “The Old Wagon“) where they just can’t seem to part with the old family “junker”, at least until it rolls off a cliff and is totaled. Unfortunately for me, the Kelly Blue Book value of our Odyssey as a trade-in is less than the cost to have the transmission replaced. Ouch! I will be donating my Odyssey to charity though.
So now I’m currently on a mission to find a new family car at a set CASH price of $18,000. I don’t want to finance. I just want to drive off the lot having paid ONLY that price. And I live in the San Francisco Bay Area (dealers are you listening?! Read through this post for my OWN Dealer Incentive for YOU!)
You might think that this is a piece of cake, but I have learned otherwise. The problem is, we are a bit picky on the type of car we want/need to get (and get soon). Our requirements:
- Good safety ratings –> must protect my family
- New –> for a good warranty (see below)
- Comfortable –> for a family of 5 (sub-compacts and compacts don’t quite work for us)
- Techy –> in some way (my request)
- Good gas mileage –> gas prices won’t be coming down any time soon
- Reliable –> tired of spending money on repairs
- Warranty –> don’t want to purchase a warranty on a used car, dealer certified perhaps but you don’t know the true history of a used car & how it was driven or cared for
- Automatic –> while I like and can drive stick shifts, my wife cannot
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