The Story of the Sienna

This is a story about a Sienna. A story about a girl and her gold Sienna...

That was supposed to make you reminisce about the VeggieTales song, "The Song of the Cebu." :)

I can't remember when it was that I decided I would really like to have a minivan. I'm thinking it was probably around the time I got pregnant for the second time. I started thinking about how with 2 kids in the back seat, there would be no room for anyone else! Plus, the new body styles of minivans are less "soccer mom" and more like a big crossover SUV. So having a minivan doesn't really feel like having a minivan.

My old car was a 2004 Toyota 4Runner. Ryan and I have been the only owners of that car and we've taken good care of it (it's the other random people that hit the car that haven't taken care of it for us!! Seriously, 2 times, maybe three, it was hit while sitting in the driveway!!). For a car that is 8 years old, it's very low mileage at only 87,000 miles. And it was paid for. So last summer we started shopping around for used minivans. We knew that a 4Runner was worth more than a minivan so the idea was that we wanted to do an even trade. Unfortunately, that didn't work out. There wasn't a place that was willing to make a deal like that for us.

Now to this summer. Specifically the last week. Ryan told me that my car was in need of new tires, which would cost about $600. He said that before he put that money into the car we should go see if there were any minivans available. The whole family drove around on Friday to all the dealerships here in town and searched for used minivans. We found several, but the only place that actually had the prices on the vehicles was at the Mazda/Volkswagen dealership. We talked to a saleswoman there and she was able to get the keys and let us check out the insides of the vans we liked. Two of them we immediately ruled out, one because it was a little too used, and the other because it was formerly owned by a smoker. We made an appointment with her for the next day to test drive the other two.

Saturday morning we went for our appointment and found out that one of the vans we wanted to see had been sold the previous day. I was so bummed! It was a Honda Odyssey and I was just sure we were going to love it! But we were still able to drive the Nissan Quest that was there. We really considered buying it because it was a nice color, and looked pretty nice on the inside. However, when we drove it to Ryan's sister's house and had her husband check it out, he and Ryan discovered some problems with it. I didn't want to chance it with any of that (plus having that van wasn't sitting quite right with me) so we decided not to do it.

I told Ryan that I wanted him to go to the Toyota dealership while the kids took naps to check out a Sienna that was being offered for $12,900. I knew our 4Runner was worth (trade-in value) about $9500. We were willing to put forth $1500, so I figured if the dealership would come down just a little on their price, we should be good to go. So Ryan and the salesman drove the Sienna over to our house so I could check it out (I couldn't go since kids were sleeping). I loved it from the get-go! It had all of the features that I loved in my 4Runner (things like radio controls on the steering wheel, the button that I can push to tell me how many miles are left on my tank of gas, etc.) plus some of the things I was looking for in a van (one door is power sliding, it was VERY clean--no stains on the carpet at all!, all the space I was wanting to have, plus an extra seat that is removable between the two captain's chairs). The only thing it doesn't have is a DVD player. And it's about 30,000 miles over what was on my 4Runner.

So Ryan and the salesman went back to the dealership and the guy told him that they would give us $9500 for the 4Runner, did he want to finance the rest? Ryan couldn't believe it! He couldn't believe the salesman wasn't even going to let him negotiate! So Ryan told him the deal he wanted to do and the guy told him they were too far off and that he couldn't even take that offer to his finance manager. So Ryan left.

I was so bummed! I thought about that van all weekend and I told Ryan to come back today (Monday) and if that guy didn't want to take the offer to the finance manager to find someone who would. I didn't think it was an unreasonable offer at all. Ryan was hoping not to have to deal with the other salesman today, but unfortunately he got there right at the same time as the salesman! But this time around the salesman was willing to take the offer to the finance manager. He came back and told Ryan that they would do that deal, but that Ryan would have to pay the tax, title, and license, which was another $300. So Ryan tells him that now that's pushing the cost to $1800 which is way over what he could pay. Ryan then asked to drive it to White Oak (about 10 min. away) to test it at a higher speed. He found out that the brakes needed a little work (nothing serious and Ryan knows how to fix it). He came back and told them about the brakes and the finance manager gave him two options: they would fix the brakes and Ryan would pay the TT&L or they would pay the TT&L and Ryan would be the one to do the brakes. He went with the second option. :)

And the thing that excites me the most is being able to put more people in the car! No more having to take two cars just because we couldn't fit two extra people in the car! :)