New Car!

So our minivan, a 2004 Honda Odyssey, the daily driver of kids to school and the wife to work, is starting to show its age. It's about 4 years old with 87,000 miles on it. Now we all know Honda's could pretty much run forever, but there's a balance of investment required and trust in the vehicle versus the cost of a replacement. We've been talking some bout getting a replacement, planning to do this in the winter when the '09 models would be on the showroom floor, and probably with some good incentives if this economic downturn keeps going.

However, time was against us. First, the '04 van just went through and passed inspection, but it would need breaks soon (at least pads, likely rotors) and at least 2 new tires (after a rotation). Further we found out soon that it would need a timing belt as well. For somewhere around a $1500 to $2000 investment, it would continue on in good shape. But after these touches, it wouldn't be soon before we cross over 100,000 miles. Again, no big deal for a Honda in general, but it's psychological and its trade-in value drops significantly.

Recognizing this and with a free evening we decided to pay a visit to Apple Honda. We knew exactly what we were looking for (EX-L model, no navigation, no entertainment system). We poked around in the new 2008 on the floor and found some nice additions including:

• Rear door windows that roll down (OK, power down)
• Sunroof
• 3-zone auto climate control (old was front auto, manual rear)
• Auxiliary audio input jack (3.5mm plug for any MP3 player)
• 60/40 split 3rd row (old version was sometimes heavy to fold in and out)
• Additional 8th seat (an official seat with belt between the 2d row captains chair)
• Cylinder deactivation (drops to 3 cylinders when coasting or decelerating)

So we agreed to take one out for a test drive while they evaluated our '04 for possible trade-in. The one we drove was nice, but had a strange shimmy at 60mph. We ended up driving a second that didn't shimmy and was just fine. We were really pretty impressed overall with the car. Plus they have a $3,000 incentive plus 2.9% financing. The sales manager told us you'd usually only get one or the other, but they were doing both for the Odyssey. And after a little bickering we got a trade-in value of $8,600 (well over Kelly Blue Book's estimate). The combination of $11,600 off the top and 2.9% interest rate really made this a tough deal to pass up. It was basically a gamble of the trade-in value, interest rate landscape, incentives, and cost of '09 models (which aren't any different than '08s except a restatement of horsepower). Instead of gambling and having to invest a couple thousand in the '04, we bit the bullet and drove home the '08.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take off my PIAA 1400 fog lamps off the old car. Which means I'll need to invest in replacements soon (even though the wife doesn't think they help, I love them).

But so far, all of us a very happy with the new car. The kids just love having their own windows. I'm starting to track gas mileage to see how the cylinder deactivation helps.