Casual Observation

This was just a casual observation that I made about my car buying strategies. About five years ago we were driving home in our white van from Hutch. We were going through some wooded area just south of Kingman when all of a sudden we saw a deer veering into the roadway. L saw the deer as it ran into the van. We all were scared and could hear the metal crushing as the deer smashed into the van and flipped over the van into a vacant field. Steam came out of the engine and I was scared that the van was going to blow up. We waited outside of the van until a man from our church (at that time it was our church) picked us up and took us to his country house. This happened in August and we thought deer season didn't happen until at least until September or later. Our van was towed to Kingman and we tried to survive with one car. The car was the "brown bomb," aptly named by a friend of ours. It wasn't easy at all. We hassled with our insurance company about what needed replaced, parts wise and wondered why on earth the van wasn't totaled.

The guy who owned the body shop in Kingman, felt bad for us and got us a rental car until the repairs were done. He did this out of the kindness of his heart. We didn't have to pay for the rental. We rented a Mitsubishi.

About a year later we traded our rebuilt van for a Mitsubishi. It looked almost like our rental expect for not having a spoiler. We thought it was pretty good, for a while. It was much smaller than our van and we kept thinking about getting a van again.

We found a van about two-three years later and traded the Mitsubishi off for this great 05 Dodge Caravan. It had low miles and it was only a year old. It ran great and we could carry everything from a lot of groceries to building material, plus more kids and their friends. We were planning to keep this van for longer than 5 years. This would be our used car.

All those plans ended on January 31st when a woman turned in front of our van (failure to yield the right away) and ran into our left bumper. Ruining the car computer and damaging the wheel and frame. We were blessed no one was hurt. We only had 2 more years left on the loan, the van had brand new tires (only a month or two old) and here it was totaled.

There was a difference to why this van was totaled and why the other one was not. The computer that ran the car would need to be replaced and the white van didn't have that problem. Looking back at that time I wished that the white van would have been totaled. However, I would have to come up with the deficit of that loan and it would have been bad! We didn't have Gap insurance. When we bought the 05 I told my XYZ credit union to please put Gap insurance on the loan. Even though it makes the loan higher, using this plan would save us money in the long run. Also through my car insurance I requested that we get a free rental car if we were in a wreck. That was also a good preventive measure. I'm glad that I had both of these features. We were thinking about the deer crashed van in 04.

We got a rental from a Ford agency and I had been wanting to try a Focus for a long time. I thought this would be a great car for S someday. When we got the rental, I really liked it. It was zippy and I had a free subscription to Sirius Satellite Radio.

When we decided on what the replacement was we decided on a Focus (a used one). I had to laugh because it seems like that I really like my rental cars enough to buy one. I just hope we will keep this one for at least 5 years.

I am also hoping that the Gap insurance will pay something and hope they pay all of what's left on my dead 05.