A smart buy
Today Tim and I took a short jaunt down to the south end, and ended up purchasing one of these.
We get to pick it up and take it home Wednesday!
There is an 18-20 month waiting list for ordering these cars. A coworker of mine ordered one over a year ago, but she ended up purchasing an "orphaned" model that had come in earlier (orphans are cars that people had ordered but ended up not actually taking; usually because another car had come in earlier or because they just decided to go another route - eg hybrid, etc). , and so the one that she ordered that arrived this week, suddenly became up for grabs. So we grabbed it. After doing appropriate research to validate the safety, gas mileage, consumer ratings, environmental claims, etc.
Right now I'm filling up my Audi (when it's not in the shop to get a new transmission; but that's another blog entry) with a full tank of gas once per week. I did the math after tracking my consumption and costs carefully for several weeks and right now in my current car I'm averaging about 18 miles per gallon total; and I'm spending about $266 per month on gas.
$266 per month on gas. I tell you, I get SO ANGRY these days when I have to fill up my car. Actually angry. I used to just be mildly annoyed but willingly accepted it as a necessary cost of choosing to own a car. But now I'm just angry. Outraged. And not just at the industry or the companies or governments involved . I'm angry at my own lack of foresight and bigger picture thinking. I didn't need to buy the Audi in October 2000. I could have chosen to buy a more fuel efficient car then. But I didn't, because I wanted to endulge myself, and now I'm shelling out $266 in gas. And as a result of wanting to be self endulgent I'm an enabler of those prices continuing to climb and our dependancy on oil continuing to grow. Unless I decided to change something. And at this point I'm so fed up with the state of my gas consumption and the money I'm literally pouring into the tank of my car that I decided I needed to change something. And fast.
So you might say this car was a (well-researched) impulse buy. But I think it really was the smart (pun intended) decision for us.
Most of our weekday driving takes place in 2 cars. Tim drives his car to work which is usually up north. I drive Bobbin to daycare and myself to work which is in the opposite direction. I definitely need to have a car at least for the daycare portion of my commute both ways, so being a 1-car family would be more of a challenge than I'm willing to take on at this point in our lives. I'm open to changing the non-daycare portion of my commute to reduce the gas consumption if I can find some viable options and I'm researching that now. But I still want to have a car that I can use to get me where I want to go when I want to go in the time that I have to get there.
This seemed like the answer. My first and primary concern however, was about safety.
1) It's tiny. How would it hold up in crashes with big vehicles
2) It has no back seat; would it really be safe and responsible of me to transport Bobbin in this car, which would be the primary purpose.
Tim and I did the research and found the answer to #1 to be pretty impressive. It is a small car and so crashing in a small car is definitely different than crashing in a big car. But the safety design, features, and technologies are impressive and thorough and the actual video that Tim found online was convincing.
I also confirmed that it was legal to transport children in a front seat in a car seat if there was no rear seat in the vehicle. The airbag automatically deactivates when there is less than 80 lbs in the seat. We'll need to confirm this and test it out for ourselves (will Tommy fit in Bobbin's carseat? Hmmm... that could be interesting) to be sure, but everything we've read and seen seems to indicate that the vehicle is safe enough to be granted the honour of transporting our most precious cargo - namely one little Bobbin.
I took a test drive last friday and it definitely feels different - especially on the freeway. The automatic shifts aren't nearly as smooth as they are in the audi, and the braking feels different (wheels are smaller & the car feels different) but in terms of roominess, I forget that I'm driving in a vehicle that is essentially as long as most cars are wide, until I step outside and look at it.
I can't wait until Wednesday! And I can't wait to see Bobbin's reaction to the new vehicle. Although I'm prepared for her to be less than enthused about this purchase. She has a special attachment to our cars and we're going to be selling Tim's white 1991 VW Corrado (which is in excellent condition, btw) to help finance the smart car. I expect she may express some sadness over the loss of Daddy's car. I expect to witness something similar to the emotion my sister expressed when she learned that our Dad had traded our Volvo in for a 3-person pickup truck when she was just a couple years older than Bobbin is now. As long as Tim doesn't shave his facial hair at the same time, I think she'll recover quickly.
Mostly I can't wait to see how much mileage I get after the first month, and what my monthly spend on gas turns out to be :-)
Comments
For the record, I was disappointed because I was under the impression that the super awesome surprise Uncle Tom told me was waiting for me on my return from Newfoundland would be a puppy....not a Jeep Comanche. You can see how that would be a let down. :-)
Posted by Sarah on June 9, 2008 5:37 PM.