new car

I wanted to write about our new van, not for the car itself, but the story behind it. Before we went on vacation, we spent over $500 to make sure our old Dodge could make it. It didn't. It broke down on the freeway about 10 miles outside of Beaver on the way down. They replaced the fuel pump (another $500) even though they weren't sure that was the problem. Miraculously, we made it all through Bryce and Zions and other fun spots. Then, on the way home, the van started having trouble shifting into high gear. We stopped in Cove Fort (about 2 hours from home) and added oil and coolant and tried getting on the freeway. We tried about 6 or 7 times before the car just gave up completely. A mechanic from a small repair shop there said it sounded like a clog in the transmission. Faced with another several hundred dollars to both tow and/or fix our van, we decided to ditch it there and paid the mechanic to tow it to a junk yard. Thank heaven for our brother-in-law who drove all the way home from vacation and then back to get us and our van-full of stuff and drive us home. I think it was over 9 hours of driving for him.

One of the worst parts was that I test drove a new van the day before we left, but felt unsure about making such a quick purchase. I was kicking myself after ours broke down the first time because they actually would've given us $500 for it! But when we got back I decided to look into the foreign models and perhaps avoid all the break-downs in the future. I guess we'll see! So here's our new-used Toyota minivan. It's more up to date, but the best part is that it runs.