Our new car

After looking for a new car for about a week, we found one that was perfect. Well, "perfect" in the used car sense of the word. Until then we had been making due very well with TJ's Ford Ranger truck and my Ford Escort. Unfortunatly, we had to take my car in for repairs and the estimated amount was in the vacinity of $3000. Thankfully, we learned the advantage of having a car for almost 5 years and knowing what and what had not been replaced in it. Thus, we knew immediately that some of the repairs "needed" sounded highly questionable. Planning to take the car back to Peoria to have some of the repairs seen to we decided not to have anything repaired at that shop.

However, this event got us thinking. The Ranger was a '93, my Escort was a '94. Since my car was a 2-door neither of the vehicles are very convenient for a car seat. Though, my Escort gets 35 mpg, the Ranger is a gas hog. Not only does it only get 22 mpg, but it also requires premium gas in order to work right. At this point in time it costs nearly $50 to fill the truck up with gas. After much deliberation (it was a big deal for TJ...he had done alot of work on the truck), we decided we didn't really need a truck and so we should get rid of it and get a newer car (with four doors). Thus the quest for a late '90s model four-door sedan in our price range. We also narrowed it down to prefereably being an Escort (we have had great success with my Escort).

After test driving a few cars, TJ decided that he didn't really want to settle for less than a manuel transmission, thus, our pool of choices was narrowed down even further. Thankfully, the Lord answered our prayers by providing a '97 Ford Escort in excellent condition. It was a four-door and a stick. What more could we ask for? Since it was at a dealership TJ had decided beforehand what trade-in value he would take for his truck. TJ didn't think there was any chance they would offer what he wanted for the truck...but praise the Lord, they did and we drove away with a newer car that gets better gas milage for a difference of only $1,300.

Unfortunatly, as with any used car, there have been small things that needed repaired on it. It needed new tires (which greatly improved the drivablility of the car), an alinment, a tie rod, spark plugs, air filter and the last thing to fix is some little valve that has to do with emissions. But despite this we have been very please with the car so far. It gets 35 mpg so we are hoping that we will see an improvement in our monthly gas bill (which lately had been getting out of control, due to the truck and rising gas prices).

Now that we have two Escorts it is a little hard to get used to not call my old Escort "the car." Since all we have is cars now, that could be pretty confusing. In hopes of getting out of that habit we were thinking we would call the old car "the old busted" and the new car "the new hottness." What do you think?

Can you believe that?

It has definitely been a very good first year. I've heard it said that the first year is the hardest. Hmm, not sure if that is true, but if it is then that is great. Looking forward to the rest.