Somewhere in the middle of 2010, my husband convinced me to trade in my very cool, sexy-ish SUV for a very hockey-mom like mini van. I really don't know how he did it, but soon he had me excited about all the extra room it would have, and the benefits of being able to bring lots of sporting equipment or luggage with us, without sacrificing space for the kids to sit. With a trip to Myrtle Beach planned for the family in April, I fell for the sales pitch hook, line and sinker (did I mention that my husband makes sales his profession? He is good!)
So, we decided to do the sensible thing, and instead of buying new, and locking in to a four year car payment, we would buy a late-model mini van with low kilometres that would last us at least five years and if we were lucky, ten.
The only problem is, we didn't get lucky. We got a van that came with the worst curse that could have ever been placed on a vehicle before. The first week we had it we had to bring it in to the dealer to have four things repaired. Now as it turned out, as I was screaming "Lemon", the service manager was explaining to me that everything they had repaired had been under recall and the previous owner just hadn't bothered to have the recalls repaired. Fair enough.
Flash forward a few days to the night before we leave for Myrtle Beach. The vehicle had to go for an emissions test before the ownership could be transferred to our name. Sign of Bad Luck #1: When the e-testing machine breaks, with your van on it, and your van catapults of the machine at 80km/h and smashes into a guardrail. Next thing we know, we're in a sweet rental van all the way to Myrtle Beach and back - and returned to pick up my van, fresh with $2500 worth of new materials all around the hood and side panel.
There have been other smaller, minor details since April. Air conditioning not working, Gear shifter won't go into park, Calipers on breaks seize at 30,000km and both sets of breaks need replacing. At this point I'm cursing this thing on a daily basis.
Cue to September - Sign of bad luck #2: driving home from work when a utility van driving in front of me loses it's spare tire from underneath the vehicle, lays it right down on the road like an egg, and I have nowhere to go but directly in to it. When all was said and done, the damage done was more than $3000 and I had no choice but to go through insurance (the driver did not realize he had lost his spare tire so did not stop).
Things continue to malfunction with this vehicle. Both sliding doors fail to open at least once a week this winter. Which means that we must climb through the trunk in order to get to our seats. While the kids think this is fantastic, this is not what I envisioned when my husband made his big sales pitch about a great family vehicle!
Someone wise once said with respect to a vehicle - 3 and done. Meaning, time to get rid of it. We feel like we have gone well past our three, and then some. So we are moving on. Although somehow now that I'm already at the mini van stage, I'm unable to go back to the SUV stage. So we are looking at more mini vans, still used, but probably just going back to last year's model. Which means that we'll be having to use the line of credit for the difference in the value that we've lost on that piece of crap the current van that we own.
one thing I'm considering doing is something that any investment advisor would strongly discourage and that is this:
My husband and I just re-financed our mortgage. We have a variable rate and we broke our mortgage to move to a lower interest rate. In order to do this with our current lender, we had to increase the mortgage by $10K. Initially we had just planned to put that money right back down on the mortgage as a lump sum payment. but since the rate on the mortgage is currently below prime, we're thinking about taking that $10K and using it to buy the new vehicle. I would probably be stoned by any reasonable investor for saying such a thing, but since the mortgage is our only debt, and we paying it off ahead of time anyway, I feel somewhat justified in my opinion.
If anyone has any advice on this topic please share!
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