Adventures in Car Shpping Part 1

We have been talking about getting a new car for a few months now, ever since Kristian sold his 4Runner a couple of months back. He has a truck for work that his boss bought him so we didn't really need his 4Runner, especially since it had 250K miles on it and was breaking down a lot. We knew however that eventually we would want to get another SUV so that we would have more room for family trips, something that would drive well in snow and that would be big enough for him to throw a deer in the back of on his hunting trips. Unfortunately my little Corolla doesn't work for those things.

So the plan is to trade in my Corolla for an SUV that I will use daily but that Kristian can use on the weekends when he goes hunting. We decided to go looking this past weekend to narrow down what we liked and didn't like. Initially I had my eye on a Toyota Highlander and he liked the Honda Pilots.  After looking around at Carmax we both decided we preferred the GMC Acadia. It had everything we wanted and looked really sleek. Surprisingly the pricing was also within our budget. We came close to getting it. The two things that stopped us were; 1. The gas mileage sucks and I have a long commute to work. We couldn't stomach what we would have to pay in gas and 2. Since we hadn't considered Acadia's before we wanted more time to research them. So we walked away.

We got home and looked online and discovered GMC makes a slightly smaller SUV call the Terrain. It's very similar to the Acadia but doesn't have the 3rd row seating (which we really don't need) and gets better gas mileage (though still not as good as my Corolla).

This is a GMC Terrain

 

We went to another dealership on Sunday to test out the Terrains and really liked them. The size is good, it's still very roomy with lots of storage without being "too big" and it has a lot of features we both want. We actually were looking at a new 2013 and again came close to buying it but they couldn't get the pricing where we needed, it was just slightly over budget and I felt like we needed more time to shop around for a better deal. Also, I should note that when we went shopping on Saturday my mom was watching Hunter but on Sunday we had to bring him with us, he did pretty well considering we were there for THREE hours but I definitely wouldn't recommend car shopping with a toddler. The saving grace was the playroom they had there.

 

So that's where we are at right now, we know we want the Terrain, we know what our budget is and how much we can put down it's just a matter of finding the right one for the right price. We have a few more dealerships to check out and our salesguy from Carmax is also on the hunt for us so we could have new car later this week. Honestly, we're not in a rush and frankly the thought of having car payments again after 3 years makes me a bit ill but it needs to happen eventually.