My New Car

That’s not the best picture, but it’s the only one I have at the moment. Having lost my car to the flood, I moved quickly to replace it. We don’t have car rental coverage (we’ll be fixing that soon) and the car juggling act was going to get more complicated as soon as Dad’s out of the hospital. The first thing I did was come to the realization that it didn’t make much sense to replace my beloved Saab 9-3 SE Convertible with another convertible. I can’t drive around with the top down with Mikaela in the car anyway, and the price premium was going to be prohibitive. I shopped around pretty hard over the weekend and stumbled on the Infinity I35. It’s bigger than my Saab, which will be nice as Mikaela is getting older and there are more times when a full back seat may be useful.

The Infinity I35 is a sister car to the Nissan Maxima. The Infinity is a bit more luxurious and (key point) has a longer warranty. Since I was getting a used car, I liked the idea of getting one that still had some of its original warranty remaining. I test drove it on Tuesday afternoon and was sold almost instantly. The car is in good shape and drives well. It’s not as nimble as the Saab, but the ride is softer and quieter. It will be less fatiguing to take this car on road trips for work to St. Louis and Omaha than it was in the Saab. The acceleration is quite good. It’s not turbocharged like the Saab, but the engine has two more cylinders and is 75% larger. It’s got a big trunk and lots of little amenities. It’s also a 2002 car, so it has LATCH system connectors for making car seat installation easier. I got a very good financing rate and negotiated a good deal (gotta love buying on the last day of the month), so our car payment is actually going to be smaller than it was for the Saab – it’s just going to go on for an additional three years.

I’m still sad that I’m losing my dream car convertible. But this new car should serve us well and probably actually meets our needs better.