Paul and Emily dot com

I bought a new vehicle today. But I’ll start from the beginning…

I sold the Talon today. A 17 year old and his parents drove from West Virginia (~5 hours) and ‘look’ at the talon. I knew it was as good as sold when I opened the garage door and Matt whispered “Dad….there it is!”. Didn’t get the exact amount I wanted for it, but I felt good selling it for less since I knew this kid was going to love the car. Here’s the car momments before it left my driveway for the last time:

Emily and I went out “looking” to see what kind of SUVs are on the market around here. We drove through and walked around 10+ dealer lots. At our last stop, Champion Dodge, I saw a maroon 98 Durango. Further inspection proved it to be a 20 footer (only looks good from 20 feet away). Dents, dings, scratches, thinned paint and a nail in a tire. Next was a 2001 Ford Explorer Sport. Out of my price range and the armrest was completely broken. Next was a 99 silver pewter metallic Durango. 5.2l V8 (230HP, 300lb/ft torque…but at 6300lbs!!). Looked nice, very little body defects, and has an aftermarket 6 disc cd changer.

We haggled a little. The dealer wanted $9995 which was about $3000 more than I was “allowed” to spend. So we went inside to get the sales guy’s card (it was his first day and he didn’t have any with his name) and while we waited, Emily suggested we just lowball them and offer the $6700 I got for the Talon. The sales guys were a little surprised, but they turned around, huddled and talked, and accepted the offer! Not bad eh?!

Although the Durango only gets 17MPG highway (hence the tree hugger title to this post), I only have to fill it with 87 octane. That saves me 20 to 30 cents per gallon at each fill up, and the talon only got 20-22 MPG anyway (about 200-225mi per tank), if I was lucky.

I’ll get some more pictures tomorrow, but here she is:

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