Since day one, Andrew was never thrilled with our car. I bought it when I returned home from Korea, during our "courting" and six years later we still had it. It served us well, but Andrew always considered it a "yank tank" and was appalled at it's "horrendous" gas mileage (fuel efficiency). Given that the miles on it were low and it was paid off, he always "lived" with it, but dreamed of the day we'd let someone else drive it off into the sunset.
Because Andrew could not work until he'd been here for about a year the Malibu as our only car was fine. Once he started working, we both worked in town and close to home, so one car still suited us fine for the most part. Plus I was chauffeured to/from work daily and most days we had lunch together, so those were added bonuses. We always knew we'd trade it in sooner or later, but it was working just fine.
When he started a new job last fall that increased his commute considerably -- from 5 minutes to 40 minutes one way, plus a lot of time on the road -- the Malibu's fuel consumption, and thus it's fill ups, really started to add up. The mileage was getting higher (in his first five months on the job, about 10,000 miles were added to the clock) and our gas (petrol) budget spiked, with several fill-ups a week sometimes. Thus, we decided that we should "probably" start looking for a different vehicle.
So we started talking about what kinds of vehicles we liked/didn't like and were pretty non-committal about really making a change.
Enter a rainy Saturday afternoon. I was driving home from my parent's house (they live less than a mile from us) and minding my own business. I was not going more than about 15 or 20 mph through an intersection where I had the right-of-way (no stop sign) when a large SUV (a true "yank tank") stopped at a stop sign and then proceeded to drive into the same intersection and right into our car and me! Luckily she also was at a low rate of speed and slammed on her brakes when she heard me honking and saw me slowing down! Needless to say a collision was unavoidable.
I, along with our eight-week old baby-to-be, were fine, though the same couldn't be said for Andrew's "beloved" Malibu. So, the urgency for a new set of wheels suddenly jumped from sometime in the next year or so, to sometime in the next week or two. Andrew had "parameters" for what he expected in this non-Malibu vehicle and so did I. Luckily they aligned quite well as things that I wanted (keyless entry (remote central locking), four doors, trunk release, CD player, child-seat anchors, not an ugly color, big enough for two child seats in the back with decent trunk - boot - space leftover) are features that most post 2000 vehicles possess (or are standard features you can opt for anyway). Andrew's were more "concrete" and ones that sounded fine to me, though I didn't necessarily understand what they all were.
So in the end we were both happy! Oh and as for what we decided on...a Jetta TDI (that's a diesel) station wagon (or golf estate for those across the pond). It has 4 doors, room for two car seats with trunk space left and it's not an ugly color either. Oh and keyless entry too! Thanks lady for hitting me on that rainy afternoon...you ended up making our entire family happy. Nothing says family car like a station wagon.
Oh and I should note: We had a station wagon when I was a kid and I HATED it! I thought station wagons were ugly and why would anyone WANT to have one. 25 years later i think they're great...go figure.
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