I drive a minivan- well not this week- but that's getting ahead of myself. I don't like minivans. They just aren't my style but for several reasons it is the vehicle I'm forced to use.
Want to know why?
1. My husband is 6'9" - without shoes on. He doesn't fit in a lot of vehicles. We had a Honda Civic once upon a time (we were poor college students) and my husband's knees hugged the steering wheel and we kept having to jump start the battery because he would accidently turn on the headlights with his knees and not know it! He does fit in many minivans though.
2. I have four daughters. I have to have a car that will fit 6 comfortably.
3. Due to my husband's height and mine (I'm only 5'11") our twelve year old is over 5'8" already. We don't have small girls for their age and they are only going to get taller. I looked at some of the non-minivan vehicles with third row seats but none would fit our tall family for long.
4. I'm frugal. If you've read my penny pinching post, you already know that. I need a vehicle that gets good gas mileage and that isn't too expensive. I don't need a big car payment!
That's what brings me back to the real topic of this post. I had a minivan that was paid for... and I got in a fender-bender. Because of the age & mileage of my minivan, the repair value was more than 75% of the value of the minivan so the insurance decided not to repair but to give me the value of the vehicle instead. That meant I had to go car shopping! I hate car shopping because it only reminds me of #1-4 above!
Due to lack of competent communication from our insurance company, we thought we had the rental car for 30 days. That's only the car was being repaired, but since it was being totaled I had 5! I didn't know that before I decided to buy the MINIVAN that had to be shipped from Alabama (It was worth it- it has only 8K miles and was a fabulous price). My rental was returned and now I'm driving my husband's rust bucket.
When I say it's a rust bucket, I'm being all too serious and maybe a bit too kind.
-It is rusting away in several places, most noticeably on the rear passenger doorways near the back tires (I'm guessing due to salted roads where this car must have been driven and never washed).
-The driver side doorway handle broke. I have to open the door by reaching across from the passenger side or by reaching from the rear door (by all the rust).
-The lights on the dash work intermittently...when it's dark I can see outside the car because the headlights work but I can't always see inside the car, like how fast I'm going. I figured out how to turn them on inside yesterday though- if I flash my high beams the interior lights turn on for a while only to turn back off at some point so I am sure to blind someone as I try to see how fast I'm going.
-The gas gauge doesn't work. We know how much gas is in the car by resetting the trip odometer every time we fill up and use mileage to guess how long we can go before running out. -The rear windshield is not really attached anymore. The plastic brackets that once held it in place are broken and have quit doing their job.
-The dome light on the interior of the vehicle doesn't work when you open the car door. So that means at night I have to manually turn on the light (and hope it works because it doesn't always)so I can see where the ignition is so I can start the car and then manually turn it off before I go anywhere.
-It only seats 5. So we had to have our oldest sit in the hatchback/trunk area so we could all go to church this past Sunday. Good thing it is a very short drive to church! Hey- remember sitting in the back of a pickup truck? This wasn't much different. It's not something I'm proud of, but at least we went to church.
The good news is that the engine is fine. It stops and starts fine. It gets me where I need to go this week. I got an email that the minivan should be here this week (right before we are headed out of town so it will get a good test drive). The picture at the top is of the "new" minivan I will be using for the next several years. I made my husband promise me though that this is the last minivan I have to buy.
No comments:
Post a Comment