It is the end of an era.
In 2001, shortly after leaving my 45-mile commute behind, Mrs. Dave and I decided to become a one-car family. We sold the Celica that had driven us (and two other people!) from Maine to Pompano Beach and back, and bought ourselves a brand-new shiny Saturn VUE. Gleaming, black-silver roomy goodness on wheels. The years went by and we took it everywhere - upstate Vermont, western New York, multiple trips to New Jersey and Maine...every road trip we took that didn't involve flying. Over 70,000 miles worth at last count.
The one-car family thing worked okay for a few years but the mileage was mounting on the VUE and my office moved from a half-mile away to four miles away; a little less convenient when you need to swap cars to get stuff done. I'd always secretly coveted the new-body VW Passats, and we had some money saved up, so when I found one in the local want ads for a reasonable price (and, as it turns out, a very fastidious owner), we jumped on it. And then the coveting really started.
Mrs. Dave, being the island girl that she is, tends to get cold more easily than the average human being, and when she found out about the sliced-bread goodness that is the "winter package" - heated mirrors, heated windshield spray nozzles, and best of all, heated seats - well, that spelled the beginning of the end for dear old Soonie (so named because one of the VUE's first road trips was through a monsoon). And when we found out the Green Bean was on her way, that sealed the deal. We found a great deal from a local family who was expanding beyond what their Passat wagon could hold, signed ourselves up for more debt, and listed Soonie on craigslist (though not free to a good home...couldn't really afford that).
July became October, October became January, and Soonie sat, unclaimed, in her garage. We had a few nibbles from people whose idea of negotiation was to offer 70% of our asking price and then refuse to budge when we said we were willing to bargain a little bit. That's not negotiation people, that's insulting. Don't care how much you got for the insurance settlement for the last car you smashed up - our car is worth more than yours was. We also had the unfortunate spike in gas prices to deal with - not too much market for an SUV regardless of what you say the gas mileage is.
We kept dropping the price, had some repairs done ($900+ for the front struts, which started really creaking during one of the test drives by a potential buyer - d'oh) but month in, month out, a nibble or two, but no bites. Then came the call - from a buyer two states away, who lives in the same town my brother lives in. Small world. They wrote on a Friday, Carfaxed it over the weekend, got back to us on Wednesday, came Thursday, and had the check for us by Saturday. Now it's happily carrying around a house painter and her dogs, and frolicking happily around the streets of Southern Maine.
Soonie 2002-2007
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