a new (used) ride

isn't it sharp? i kind of love it.

so, remember a few weeks ago when i was having this dilemma? yeah, that one. & how we thought we were all brilliant and had things worked out?

well, picture this: we take the car into the shop for its check-up (90,000 mile check-up, mind you). and all looked great. we paid our moneys and headed on our way. except that when they rotated my tires, they didn't balance them. because they didn't have a machine to do that. (as a side note, i know saab's aren't super-fancy, but the place we took the car for its check-up works on other fancier cars [bmw, mercedes, other european cars], so you would think they have that machine. but i digress.)

no worries though. the place we bought the tires from does free rotating and balancing for the life of the tires. jeremy took the saab in to have them balanced. cue guy to walk out and say, "are you the owner of the saab? & can i show you something?"

uh-oh.

he proceeds to show jeremy that while the car is up on the lift, he can take the tire and raise it up. by himself. and apparently, you're not supposed to be able to do this to cars. something about struts and shocks? eh, we were told $1200 to fix it. which is about a fourth of what the car was worth.

um, no thanks.

so we traded that saab in on a new (used) car. one that still gets pretty great gas mileage. that doesn't cost close to $90 to have the oil changed. and, if heaven forbid, something breaks on it, we have a five-year, 100,000 mile warranty on it. (and even if something does break after that? it won't cost a small fortune to fix it!)

whew.

i love my new car. love it. it's no longer than the saab was, so i've had a relatively easy transition. i know it looks huge in that photo. but it's not. oh, and for those interested? it's a nissan rogue. i think this will be the only car i drive from now on. swoon!