We've had the new van for exactly a week now, and I am loving it! The road to this baby was quite bumpy. We started off by scouting out cars at Carmax...and even after I thought I'd found the perfect van there, Mr. M thought we could find a better price by going with a private party.
So, next we looked at a bunch of cars on Craigslist. We drove all over Los Angeles, including the Valley on a 100+ degree day. The best one we saw was a beauty in Van Nuys, but after a little bit of prodding, we realized that a deal too good to be true probably is. ;-)
Mr. M decided to hit a few car auctions, and see what turned up. And that is where we got this van! It's a 2011 Sienna, and it has everything we wanted! It also doesn't have a bunch of things that we didn't want (like a dvd/entertainment system). The last thing I wanted was for Paprika and Ginger to start asking me to watch DVDs everytime we got in the car. I love our daily sing-alongs of Raffi too much for that. Ha!
Anyhoo- I am sooooo relieved that we got the van. We now have space for Pavenzia when she arrives, and we can also drive around guests...and I can even carpool if I want! It's a suburban mom's American dream I'm living here. ;-) But it's good...I am really happy with it, and so proud of Mr. M for surprising me with such an awesome van! :-)
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I have a 2005 Toyota Sienna and LOVE it. All that it has required is regular oil changes (about every 6 months), tire rotations and new brakes. It is a great van and we love ours~ Congrats! I wish it were better in the snow (we live in Maine!) but you won't need to worry about that!
Awesome! We've had the van talk a few times. One of my friends wants me to babysit her NB, but I had to say no because we can't fit all 3 car seats across our Prius. How is the seating in the van? Is someone in the backseat?
Party of 5, your van is waiting... hope you won't have to wait much longer to fill the back seat.
Good job Mr. Mustard!
Van's really are like an extra pair of hands for a busy Mom.
This is way belated, but I had remembered you purchased a van through a car auction. We live in Long Beach and are probably looking to purchase a van in the near future (we had our third in Sept and I'm resistant...). Can you tell me how you did the whole auction thing? :) It seems intimidating. And forgive me if this is too personal, but would you mind telling me around how much you paid for it? We're new to this and I have no idea what you can get them for. Thank you!! And btw, you look GREAT. Good job with Myfitnesspal!
thanks! i have been trying to figure out a way to email you- but i can't- so i'll just post here. we found a dealer on craigslist who took us to a few auctions. we saved quite a bit of money on the car- it depends on what you buy- and it really varies. sometimes you get lucky. it is a bit of a stressful thing though because you don't know what you're getting and there is no return policy (outside fo 24 hours, i think). also, you have to either have cash or financing already in place. but it is worth it if you want to save money. i wanted to go with certified from carmax, but we saved several thousand dollars going this way, so in the end it all worked out. hope this helps!
Thank you so much for your response--that does help a lot. Hopefully we'll be able to get a good price for one!
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