My First Car Purchase

Lovin' these new wheels

I have never bought a car before. I learned how to drive on my dad's Acura and when that basically died we had a Toyota 4-Runner as a kid car to use. I was fortunate enough to use that car few semesters at college. I then served a mission and I had the same car my whole mission - for a missionary it was a super beat up car, surprisingly enough - a white Impala. When I came home from my mission I used my mom's Honda Civic until I got engaged to Omar. He had a 2007 Toyota Camry that he never used and so it became my car.

The old Camry

I used it tons of course. We have kept it in good shape taking care of it. I went to get an oil change a few weeks ago and they said there was no oil touching the dipstick which is odd because our car really wasn't overdue for an oil change. I had been noticing it working a little harder than normal when using the RPMs. Omar asked some friends and they thought the oil was going into the pistons or the transmission might start to be going since we haven't seen oil on the ground or anything. It was time to look for a new car.

We used USAA car buying service and I got my first auto loan through our local credit union. At night in the dark after work Omar and I would go to different auto stores to find the right vehicle. I thought that I wanted something different and so we weren't planning to go to Toyota. I wanted a mid-size Sedan since they tend to have better gas mileage and I drive 80 miles a day at least. I wouldn't be opposed to a hybrid but the battery takes up too much room in the trunk which doesn't work for our traveling needs.

We went to Ford and Chevy and decided those were not the cars for us without even doing a test drive. We went to Nissan and test drove the Altima - it was pretty nice. We went over to Honda for the Accord, but the ride was way too loud. We then went to Hyundai but the car felt too cramped and the ceiling was low.

Just to double check we went over to Toyota to drive the new Camry. It just felt right! We were able to get $6k for our trade-in, which Omar was shocked that I was able to manage that much for it. We walked out the door with another grey 2014.5 Camry SLE for $16k and change. The funny thing is I didn't see my car in the day light for about 2 days. I am loving my new car and all of its features, especially the seat warmers.

I hit 1,000 miles within a week of owning the car and it came to me with 6 miles on it!

 Now to pay this car off in a year and a half!

My new car on the lot - right after buying it!