New car

We did it! We finally got a new car!

Saturday, Chris called our bank to find out if we could get pre-approved for an auto loan. We were approved for an interest rate between 3-4% lower than our loan on the Civic, and we were approved for more than we intended to spend!

We didn't get a single inquiry about the Civic when we placed it for sale online so we decided to take it to CarMax on Saturday. I know we didn't leave it up for sale very long but I was expecting to get at least ONE inquiry. The car is in fantastic condition, and we priced it under the Kelley Blue Book value. Anyway, CarMax will give you an offer for your vehicle that is good for 7 days, and you have no obligation to buy a car from them. They offered us less than we were selling it for so we left to think about it. Saturday night, Chris and I looked at cars online (to buy) at autotrader.com and at different dealerships' websites. When we found a car we liked, we first looked at the CarFax report and surprisingly (at least to me), a lot of the cars we liked were previous rentals so that made it a "no" for us. If the CarFax checked out, we would research reviews for the car's year and model to weigh its pros and cons. And we'd look at the Kelley Blue Book values to make sure the cars weren't over-priced. After looking at probably 100 cars, we narrowed it down to 3.

Yesterday (Sunday), we went car shopping to obviously look at the cars we'd found but also to find out the trade-in value for the Civic. The first car we went to look at had already been sold so the salesman tried to interest us in another car. He offered us a really good deal on a Ford Focus but when we took it for a test drive, we definitely knew it wasn't for us. Then the salesman started being really, really pushy so we told him we just weren't interested in doing business with them anymore.

Our next stop was at a Nissan dealership in Kearny Mesa (an area of San Diego). The other 2 cars we were interested in were there. We looked at and test drove a 2007 Nissan Altima and fell in love! It was PERFECT. We'd already done so much research on the actual car and on 2007 Altimas in general so we were really confident we should buy the car. So we bought it! The dealership offered us $500-$1000 less than CarMax did for the Civic but when we told them what CarMax offered us, they matched it. We were still upside down almost $3500 so we paid the dealership that so we wouldn't have to add anything from the Civic to the loan for the Altima.

It is SO roomy. With the Civic, Kylie's car seat had to sit behind the front passenger seat because the car is so small that if it sat in the middle of the back seat, the driver's seat and the front passenger seat have to be scooted all the way up, and that's just not doable for the driver. I wouldn't even sit in the front passenger seat because I'd practically be sitting on the dashboard because the seat had to be scooted up so far for the car seat to fit in the back. It was SUCH a hassle!!! In the Altima, the driver's seat and the front passenger seat can be scooted all the way back, and Kylie's car seat fits perfectly in the middle and on the sides.

I'm so in love!!!