Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The Car Problem...Solved!

So, we left you, our dear readers, hanging, with the Moose Family temporarily reduced to a one-car family. How to get a new car? We didn't want to take out a car loan right before taking out a mortgage, or spend a bunch of our down payment either.

(This whole thing would have been much easier if it hadn't been raining, and raining, and raining, making a bike commute, even to the hospital, dangerous...)

But I can now present the new Moose Family auto:



"But Hilary," you may say, "that looks just like your old car!"

Indeed. We solved this problem in fine New England style—we met a guy at the Norwich farmers' market! He was parked next to us, Alex struck up a conversation with him, and it turned out that he was selling his car. For less than $1000. We realized that this was the perfect solution, an inexpensive bridge vehicle that we hope will get us over the mortgage hump. It is a 1995 Subaru station wagon, making it a whole year younger than the almost-identical car it is replacing. Though I suppose "new" may be a little bit of a stretch. Especially since it has 203,000 miles on it. However, it does have the added benefits of having a manual transmission and no automatic seatbelts, addressing my biggest complaints about my old car!


We bought it contingent on it passing the New Hampshire inspection, or requiring only minimal work to do so. Two weekends ago we drove up to Vermont, picked the car up, took it across the border to New Hampshire, and had it inspected. It did need a little work (a new CV and outboard axle assembly), which it had this past week. Now it is all inspected and registered. Welcome to the family, Subaru Two!

1 comment:

Allison and Jared said...

once you find something good you might as well stick with it! I love that you bought an (almost) identical car!