The New Car

Though my Subaru was running fine at 192,000 miles, it was reaching (or had reached) it’s end for viable safety.

With a budget in mind, we started looking.

My plan was to get a new (to me) truck. A nice 4 door, 4 wheel drive short bed that I could put a cap on and go places with the entire family. We could then sell the Subaru and truck to consolidate our vehicle fleet.

Knowing our tendency to keep vehicles and drive them into the ground, I wanted something dependable and long lasting.

That essentially boiled down to a Toyota Tundra.

We looked, and looked, and looked, but only found a single Tundra 4 years old with 100,000 miles on it in our price range.

Hmmmmm. Time to change tactics.

Why not another Subaru Outback?

Again we started looking within our price range.

We looked, and looked, and looked.

We found another 4 year old model. This time with 75,000 miles on it that was in our price range.

What I couldn’t believe was that we were essentially looking at what I bought in 2005 for twice the price. Was it twice the car? What the hell?

In the meantime while we were trying to figure out how and when to go see this high dollar cast away, something else popped up.

A (mostly) brand new 2014 Subaru Outback for $500 less than the used one with 75k miles on it.

Whaaaaat?

Yep, but there’s a catch.

Remember the devastating hail storm that hit the Reading, PA area last spring? This car was one of many that was sitting on a dealer lot when the storm came through. It was their courtesy car or something and only had 3,100 miles on it. The windshield and lights and things had been busted out, but since repaired.

The body?

Well the body looks like a golf ball. It’s permanently dented from bumper to bumper, but otherwise a new car.

Our new car.

The picture/glare makes it look better than it is, but ultimately it’s not horrible.

It’s a nice new car. A big car. Way bigger than the old Subaru or the Prius. Hell. It’s an SUV.

Ok, so now we have two Subaru Outbacks and a fullsize pickup truck. What’s the plan?

The plan is obviously to sell the old Subaru as well as the truck and see how well we get along with the new trailer configuration. My only concern in that respect is hauling pellets for our stove each year. The pellets come on 1 ton pallets (we need 3), which the Subaru and trailer can’t haul in a single trip. With a pickup truck, I could have managed, but is it worth it to keep a pickup truck around each year for 3 local trips? What I’ll try this fall is the Home Depot truck rental. If that works and isn’t too annoying, I’ll continue with that. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to look for another trailer solution. The new Subaru hauls 2,700 lbs, so buying a trailer with more capacity may be in our future.

We shall see.

– b