Thursday, May 9, 2013

New Van!!

For the last 2 years, I've posted about how our van was slowly breaking down more and more, and how we just kept fixing it and going on.

After a few more old-age quirks from our van, we decided to start looking for a new van.  We found the van that we wanted (a Toyota Sienna, 2004+), and waited for a good deal.  We waited for nearly a year, watching online ads and keeping our eyes open at all times, waiting for the right van to come along.

On Monday morning, I came across a van that I'd seen before, but it was listed as a 7 passenger.  We were set on an 8 passenger van.  I'm not sure why, but I clicked on the ad, and browsed through the photos.  It was then that I realized that regardless of the title on the ad, this was definitely an 8 passenger van!  I called the Lexus dealership that was selling the van and confirmed the number of seats. The sales person couldn't believe they had made a mistake like that- it virtually eliminated their chances of selling the vehicle!  Anyone who wanted a 7 passenger would have seen the photos and realized it was an 8 passenger.  Anyone who wanted an 8 passenger would never click on the ad, as "7 passenger" was written right in the title.

It was a 2005 Sienna with only 126,000 km on it, for $11,500.  The other comparable vans for sale were all a good $2000 higher than this one.  This one had come down in price by over $1000 since it had been on the lot since February. 

After crunching the numbers and dipping a little into our emergency fund (technically not allowed by the Dave Ramsey Rules, but we were sure this was the right van for us,) we decided that we could pay cash for the van. Since Steve and I couldn't really find a babysitter at the last minute, we decided that I'd go do a test drive alone.  I asked my dad to come along, mostly to help with the deal making.  I've never bought a vehicle at a dealership before, and I wasn't sure what to expect.

I loved the van right away, and it took very little time to settle in and driving felt just as normal as ever.  The van was in perfect mechanical condition, the dealer had put in nearly $2000 of work into the van to bring it all up to good condition.  They even replaced the windshield because it was cracked.  When I asked about the condition of the vehicle, the sales person said to me, "What??  This is a Lexus dealership.  We do NOT sell anything that is not in excellent mechanical condition!"  He had the work orders and the inspection results to back that up.

We worked out a deal for $12,000 final price, and I was pleased to find that they had thrown in free lifetime oil changes as an added perk to the deal. 

My favorite part of the whole deal was when we came back the next day (Tuesday) to pick up the van. It was paid for in full, we didn't owe a penny.  The van was ours, like 100% ours, no payments to make later, and no buyers remorse.  We'd waited a long time to choose a van, and we felt that this was right for us!

We brought the kids to go pick it up, and we were so pleased to see that they had the van all shiny and polished up, parked inside the building right alongside all the other Lexus vehicles, waiting in front of some grand glass doors that opened to let us drive through.  The kids were all so amazed that our van was in the midst of all the "race cars", and it was immediately dubbed, "The Race Van!" 

We drove from the showroom floor out through the glass doors and felt like royalty.  It was fabulous.  They treated us so well, we really loved the whole experience.  And the best part is that we paid cash, 100% cash for the purchase. No credit card debt, no car payments, nothing. 

Thanks Dave Ramsey!  Now we start building back our savings to get a down payment for a house!  We accomplished one major purchase, and I have the confidence that with more hard work, we can keep saving our way to a paid-for home!