Washing Michael red car gave us an excuse to get out of the house during our first week of homeschooling, but it also gave me motivation to get it all cleaned up and ready to sell. We weren't planning on selling it until at least May since we would need it to drive to Michael's work conference in the Tri-Cities in April, but since that got cancelled I didn't see any reason in keeping it around. Plus the weather was so nice it felt great to be outside working. I spent at least 3 hours deep cleaning the car. It had been parked down at the bottom of our easement under a tree so you can imagine all the pine needles and moss that was on the windows and in all the little crevasses.
Little Red sure cleaned up nice!
After getting the car all washed up I took pictures and posted them online on Facebook and Offer Up. I was really hoping that we could sell the car to friends since I really get creeped out by people coming to the house especially to take a test drive of a car. I don't mind buying things or selling things where it's just an exchange of money and product, but a car is different. I don't know maybe I'm weird.
A couple hours after I posted the car online I got a message from a friend at church asking if I thought the car would be good for her teenage daughter. YES!!! This was actually what I had been hoping would happen. I knew this car would be great for a first time driver or a college age student. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it's in really great shape. It's not a super sporty fast car, but it's also not ugly or a gutless wonder. I had a few other people contact me, but I told them I already had someone interested in it. Our friends came over that Saturday, test drove the car and then their daughter bought it from us. She had been saving for awhile so she was able to pay for it in full. I was so proud and happy for her!!! It just all worked out perfectly! I love how God takes care of us!
It seems like we've been saving for a truck for years....it actually has been years! Our plan this year was to buy the truck. We were looking to purchase it around June, but once we sold the car I told Michael we should start looking. It's not like we are going to find the exact truck we want on the first day we start looking. Who knows we might find a really great deal that's less money than we were planning on thus enabling us to buy a truck earlier.
We both spent some time on the computer that night checking things out. Michael ended up finding two trucks that he wanted to go look at the next day. They were both at Advantage Auto Direct in Kent. They are only open until 6pm so once Michael got home we left the kids and went to check it out.
The guy that helped us wasn't the most knowledgeable and I don't know there was just something about him I didn't really like. We took the one truck out for a drive and by the time we got back the other truck we had wanted to test drive was already blocked in by other trucks. It has started to rain so I went back to the van and Michael went over to check it out. He came back and said that the second truck had more wear and tear on the inside than he liked. We headed home after that.
The nice thing about that first test drive was it helped us figure out what we really wanted in a truck. Prior to this we only knew that we wanted a Ford F-150 that could seat 6 people and was younger than a 2012. After test driving that first truck we knew that we wanted a Ford F-150 that was no older that 2014, could seat 6 people, had a bed that was longer than 5 1/2 ft, had trailer breaks, power driver seat and running boards.
With that knowledge when we got home I went back to their website and started looking around. I found another truck that looked really promising and I sent the guy an email saying we could come down and check it out the next night if they were going to be open. By this point the governor had said that we would be closing everything down, but thankfully he gave us a couple days before that went into effect.
On Tuesday we headed down to check it out. Thankfully that guy was heading home so another sales rep helped us out. Tawnya was AWESOME! When I was looking at Advantage Auto Direct's reviews I saw her name a ton and people were always saying how awesome she was. We went out for a test drive and fell in love with this truck. I knew that we might not be able to get it, but it still felt good knowing exactly what truck we wanted. Keeping our Dave Ramsey faces on we went in to the office to find out how much the truck would be including all the taxes and licensing. Of course it was about $2000 too expensive for us. We asked if they could take the price down at all. She went and talked to her manager, but she couldn't get the price down. The thing with this place is they've only been selling to the public for a little over a year. They used to only sell to dealerships. There slogan is Buy Like A Dealer. Michael and I told her thanks, but we'll have to pass. We told her we'd be back...they have so many trucks we knew we'd eventually find one for the right price. We weren't in a hurry really.
On the way home we got a text from Tawnya asking us exactly what we were looking for in a truck so she could be on the look out for us. Michael texted her back and told her that the truck we just drove had everything we wanted and if she could get the price down $2000 we could come in the next day with a check for the full price. She apologized for not being able to get the price down and said she'd keep looking for us. The next day she texted me a couple trucks to look at. One of them we'd already looked at and the other was a Dodge Ram...I really had my heart set on a Ford F-150. She apologized again for not being able to get the price down.
The night before Michael was telling me that we would be getting a call the next day and they would want to make a deal to sell the truck. See the dealership was going to be closing for a minimum of 2 weeks and they had a shipment of 80 vehicles coming in. They needed to move some cars. After getting that text from Tawnya I was sure we weren't going to get a call, but lo and behold around 3ish in the afternoon I got a call saying she was finally able to talk her boss down by $1500. I told her I needed to talk to Michael. Of course he said yes, but I didn't call back right away....I made her wait a bit before I called back and said we'd buy the truck! :)
Once Michael got home we drove down to the dealership to get our truck. Since we were paying with a check it was so fast. I think it took us an hour, but most of that was waiting for the manager to be ready with the paperwork. I think we signed papers for about 5 - 7 minutes. Tawnya also took all the stickers off the truck and even hooked us up with Siruis XM Radio. It was such any easy experience. I would honestly recommend them if you need to buy a vehicle...just ask for Tawnya!
Michael drove the truck home and I followed in the van!
Isn't it pretty!!!!
We were so excited to show the kids!
We came home, picked them up and headed out for a drive.
I had ordered Chinese at our favorite place, but we needed to kill some times so we drove around.
We video called Ga-Ga & Pa to tell them the good news.
We also stopped to put some gas in the tank and then I got to drive.
We picked up the food and headed home.
This is the only part of the truck that Michael doesn't like. The bed doesn't have a spray in bed liner so eventually we will have that taken care of. Overall it's in awesome shape! It's a 2014 Ford F-150 with 48K miles on it, trailer breaks, power driver seat, running boards and a 6 1/2 ft bed.
We can't wait to pull the trailer with the truck instead of the van. Now the State Parks just have to open up!
I'm just amazed at how everything worked out timing wise. God is in the details!
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