Bought a car to save gas

"They" (probably Edmunds.com) say that it's good to go car shopping on a rainy day, so we did. We ended up buying a 2007 Chevy Malibu to replace our 2002 GMC Envoy. We figured that since the Envoy was coming up on 6 years old, and we didn't need it AND the huge Chevy Avalanche which is newer, we would get something smaller.

We originally went to look at Cobalts (think "updated Chevy cavalier") to add a more fuel efficient multi-passenger vehicle to the garage/driveway. Well, the ones in stock at Lonestar Chevy on 290 either didn't have the options we wanted or had too many and cost more than we wanted to spend. We decided to look at the Malibu just to see how their prices where. They had a nice "golden pewter metallic" sedan that had what we needed on it and the price wasn't TOO much more than what we had figured we wanted to pay on a Cobalt. Anyway, to shorten the story, because it was Memorial Day, they had extra rebates going on, we had an extra rebate waiting in the wings from the GM card we use. The guy brought out the list price of the car, which matched what I had looked on line before and said, "Well, there's list and I want to make a little commission so let's see what we can work out whether it's 1%, 2% etc". We told him truthfully that we could drive to our old dealer in Navasota and order anything we wanted for exactly $100 over invoice, so how about 100 bucks. He said "ok" and that was that. So, about 50 signatures later, we had a Malibu for about $3000 under the msrp/sticker price, THEN subtracted $5800 in rebates and they matched want we wanted for our trade in. We took enough to pay off what was left on our Avalanche, and left with a TINY remaining loan on the Malibu.

So, that's the first time that either me or Melanie have EVER bought a car off of a lot. We have always before ordered our cars with EXACTLY what we wanted on them, so it was quite an experience for us. All in all, we're pleased with the results, and while the Malibu is a bigger car than the Cobalt, the rated gas mileage is the same. Oh, and although the color is "golden pewter metallic", it's prettier than it sounds. It's actually a silver-grey that looks like it has a hint of blue added in and it looks different depending on the ambient lighting.

I've also decided not to go to Oshkosh this year. I want to use those vacation days for something else this year. Also, we voted to increase the flying club deposit this year for just about the same amount that it costs to attend Oshkosh for a week, so skipping the cost of Oshkosh will leave more money for flying and hopefully performing an Angel Flight this fall.

Check out my MySpace page too.