Car Shopping

We decided to take our five year old Chevy Trailblazer to Car Max and see what it was worth and to see if they had any exciting cars that we might buy. The first question out of the Car Max representative was, "How many miles do you have on your car, and is it over 100,000 miles?" Our car had been driven almost 95,000 miles, and so it was considered a possible trade by this company. Finally, they made us a written offer for our vehicle, and we went home to think about it.

We decided that probably the 100,000 miles was a cut-off in the industry, and maybe we should get serious about trying to find a newer car. We also decided in these days of high oil prices that we needed a car that gets 20-30 mpg or more. We were also committed to American brands and have been for some years.

So the quest continued. We called son-in-law Chuck, an automobile engineer with GMC in Michigan, and asked his advice. He made several recommendations such as Chevy Malibu and other GMC models by Pontiac and Saturn. We went to several agencies after HW2 checked on line for models that met our criteria. We really wanted a cute convertible like the Skye or the Solstice, but we quickly discovered that there was little trunk room if the top was down. We liked the Chevy Malibu and a similar model from Saturn, but we really had been hoping for something a bit sportier. We checked out Pontiac with no luck, and then decided to check out Chrysler Sebring before quitting for the day. The Sebring did have a nice convertible but could not be dingy towed behind our motor home. The salesman at Chrysler then suggested that we look at Chrysler Crossfire. They just happened to have a 2007 coupe on the floor and wanted to make us a deal to take it home. It had sufficient trunk room, got great mileage, and most important, it was just the kind of car we had in mind. After much dickering back and forth, we agreed to purchase this model. So now we have a newer car with much better gas mileage that is very sporty and fun to drive. If I can download a picture that I took this morning, I will add it to this space so you can see it too.