The Big Decision

Well, The Big Debate has come to an end. We bought a new car.

I have to post about it because, well…did you SEE the comments I got on Facebook when I put the minivan vs. SUV question out there for debate? (A few of you out there aren’t my FB friends, but I got 35-ish comments, many of which were strongly opinionated.  There was lots of good advice, but honestly, I didn’t even know I had that many FB friends who commented regularly.) After that and all the people we’ve talked to who have tried to persuade us to go one way or the other, I just feel like writing a little (or probably not-so-little because, well, it’s me) explanation of our decision.

We bought a crossover. A Saturn Outlook, to be specific.

Not quite an SUV, but definitely not a minivan.

First of all, we DID test-drive a minivan. A Toyota Sienna, which everyone says is the “best of the best.” The first surprise came when Kevin admitted he didn’t think it was half bad. He even said he could see himself driving one. (Insert my jaw dropping here.) He’s been…mmm…let’s say morally opposed to minivans since we first started discussing a bigger car months ago. The second surprise came when I realized I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. Everyone told me over and over again how roomy and convenient minivans were when it came to car seats and getting to the back seat and storage space. Honestly, I felt like it was…cramped. Much more so than I had expected.

And then we test-drove a crossover. And all thoughts of minivans instantly fled Kevin’s mind the second he started that thing up. I could see it in his eyes: minivans were out the door. And honestly, I was right with him on that one.

Yes, I’m going to mourn the sliding doors that open at the push of a button. Those were fabulous.

But that’s it.

Why?

Because the car we ended up getting is seriously awesome. The second seat has two captain chairs, just like a minivan. So the third seat (which is more roomy than the van’s was, by the way) is perfectly accessible. No seat folding for us. It has great cargo capacity. We compared the gas mileage online and amazingly the Saturn gets almost the same gas mileage as the Sienna and Honda Odyssey. Our insurance hardly went up at all. And finally, we paid way less for the Saturn than we would have for any of the nicer vans.

Basically, we love it.

This is a not-so-great picture taken with my iPod. It’s kind of a bad angle, but you get the idea.

And can I just add a disclaimer here? Buying a car with a third seat does NOT mean I’m pregnant, people! It cracks me up that in Utah, an upgrade to a “big” car automatically means a third kid must be on the way. For us, it simply means that Kevin’s car has reached the end of its journey and yes, another kid is most likely in the yet-to-be-determined future. Capeesh?

Speaking of Kevin’s car, we said our good-byes to it the day we got our new one. We stuck an ad on KSL Classifieds and it was gone in a matter of hours – and for a couple hundred more than we would have gotten from a junk yard. It was amazing. Even though it was falling apart and had seen much, much better days, I felt a bit nostalgic as I watched the new owner drive away. We’ve had a lot of memories with that old car. First dates, roaming Yellowstone in our pre-children days, having it stolen from in front of my parent’s house…yeah. Lots of adventures. And this car has kind of become part of Kevin’s identity in my mind. It’s going to be weird to not see him buzzing to and from work in it anymore.