Purchased our next vehicle

We have been saving for a replacement for my wife’s van for a while now. We were hoping to get another 6-7 months out of it, but as usual, God’s timing doesn’t always line up with ours. Because we were going to be buying the vehicle with cash, my wife had actually turned the whole thing into a game. She figured the longer she drove the 2001 Town and Country, the more we would save and thus the better replacement vehicle she would be able to get.

On the way to a recital, the power door on the Town and Country decided it didn’t want to stay closed, so my 16-year old daughter had to hold it closed until she finally tied it shut with a scarf. When they got home I realized what the problem was; I also realized that it wasn’t something that I was going to be able to fix. The estimate from the dealer was $920 to replace the electric motor and the latch assembly. This put us in a very difficult position. If we got the van repaired, the $920 would take 4-5 months to recover. That put us almost out to the time we were targeting for getting the replacement vehicle. If we didn’t get it fixed how much could we sell the van for, and how quickly? We decided to go ahead and start shopping for the replacement vehicle.

We drove several vans, Dodges, Hondas and Chryslers, from a 2004 model to a 2008. My wife’s family loves Hondas, so we were leaning to the Odyssey. We drove a 2004 with roughly 71,000 miles. Although it was in our price range, my wife wasn’t excited about it – she said it didn’t feel much like an upgrade. Though there was nothing else on the lot, we went back the next day and asked the dealer if he had any other Odysseys. In true “God-timing,” they had just received a 2005. They must have made a lot of upgrades from ’04 to ’05. My wife fell in love with the car. Now comes the moment of truth; can we get the car for our price?

We had already settled on the amount we were willing to spend on the replacement car. With taking our broken van as a trade, the haggling got us to within $1000 of our price. You guessed it; the dealer wanted us to meet in the middle. I told him we had a price and that was all we could do. He suggested that I talk to my wife privately about it, and although I knew what she would say I agreed. I was not disappointed in her response, “It’s just a car”. When I told the dealer what she had said, he asked if he could speak with her. She again did not disappoint. We agreed on a price and trusted God would provide the right vehicle for us for that price, and walked out proud owners of a new “for us” 2005 Honda Odyssey.

How much did we pay? I won’t tell you the dollar amount, but we did not pay a single cent more than we had agreed on; that includes taxes, new tags, title, registration and processing fee. If you are in the Fredericksburg, VA area, and are looking for a vehicle, I can recommend Pohanka Honda of Fredericksburg. Everyone there, including the dealer, Bill Hamilton, was great. Bill did his job and, although he tried to get us to come up to his price, he was a professional during the entire process. He respected our commitment to be good stewards of God’s money, and we helped him add one more sale to his year-end total.