This post is sponsored by Cars.com. All opinions are my own.
4 Things to Consider When Car Shopping
Is it about time you consider car shopping? Is your current vehicle getting high in mileage? Getting costly in repairs? Or, are you just ready for something new?
I wouldn’t consider myself a “car” girl, but I have gone through quite a few vehicles since I graduated from college. Shortly after graduation, my Chevy Cavalier had the transmission go out. Since it was already 8 years old, I decided that I was going to get a new car. I ended up purchasing a brand new Oldsmobile Alero. While I loved that car, it was my biggest purchase mistake! I had no down payment and when I got ready to sell it a couple years later, the trade-in value was terrible.
After my Alero, I bought a used Dodge Durango. Again, I loved having an SUV and sitting up a little higher on the road. Then, gas prices started skyrocketing. When gas was over $4.00 per gallon, my husband and I decided it was time to get rid of the gas guzzler.
We bought a Pontiac G6. This was an excellent car. It was sporty, got great gas mileage and was just an overall awesome ride. We brought our oldest son, Drake, home from the hospital in this car. Then, I got pregnant with our youngest son. While we could have made the G6 work, it certainly wouldn’t have been ideal. Whenever I would go anywhere and take the stroller, it had to go in the trunk upside down and nothing else could fit. There was no way, we would fit a double stroller or much else. That’s when we decided to start our next car hunting journey.
There are four things you need to consider when car shopping.
How many people do you need to accommodate?
In our situation, we were growing our family from three people to four and also needing to accommodate our two kiddos in car seats. It’s amazing how much car seats can affect your car purchase. Am I right, parents?
What’s the storage situation?
We weren’t super excited about the idea of a minivan so we started looking at smaller SUVs. We quickly realized that these vehicles weren’t really giving us anything more than what we already had. We could only seat 4-5 people and there wasn’t a lot of storage space. Remember that stroller in the trunk situation I mentioned earlier?
That meant we started looking at SUVs with a 3rd row. This allowed us to seat 7-8 people depending on the models and have flexibility with the storage area.
How is the gas mileage?
Remember the days when gas was $4.00 per gallon? That really took a hit on the pocketbook in our house since I was driving the Durango. This time when we were car shopping and looking at another SUV, we also took gas mileage into account. We didn’t want to get anything larger than what we needed.
Check out this site for vehicles with the Best and Worst Gas Mileage in 2018.
What amenities do you want or need?
In addition to the seating in our new vehicle, we had some amenities to choose from. Do you want leather seats? Built-in DVD players? Heated Seats? Sun or Moon Roof?
We ended up buy a GMC Acadia and LOVE it! It has three rows with bucket seats in the middle (my non-negotiable). The seats are leather with the driver and front passenger seats being heated. It also has remote start and an automatic liftgate.
It’s been a perfect car for our family. We’ve driven it to Florida twice (going a third time next month), Myrtle Beach, Pennsylvania / DC, and multiple trips to visit family and friends in Northern Illinois and Wisconsin. I’m hoping it will last us a lot longer because we really like it and it’s been good to us!
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