Car. Vrrom!

I titled this post what Wesley would have called it. He loves to say that little phrase. Cute.

Eric's job requires him to travel quite a bit, as you probably have figured out by now. :) With the move to Connecticut, about half of the traveling he does is driving all over the state. After polling pretty much everyone we met that knows more than us about Connecticut, we decided that his little front-wheel drive pickup was not going to cut it through the winter. That and the fact that the clutch and tires were up for replacement, we lost the shell in the move, and it only seats 2ish people. We crammed all 3 of us in there and the more pregnant I got, the less fun that was. Anyway, Eric began the hunt for an acceptable replacement given our criteria and budget and we found one! We bought a Ford Escape to replace his truck. It was the same year as his truck, far fewer miles, 4WD, and actually has a back seat. All pros.

This makes the 7th car that Eric and I have shared in the 3 years we've been married. I think we have a problem. No but really, there is a good explanation behind every car change. That's another story for another day.

So we get our little Escape and it has a tough time starting at the dealership. Hmmm. That hadn't happened when we had test-driven it. I thought maybe it was just a fluke since it was a colder day than before or who knows what. Anyway, it turned out not to be a fluke. Every time we tried to start it, she struggled. And it got worse each time. Worse and worse until the check engine light came on and it nearly died at stoplights. That's when we called the local Ford dealership to get it looked at. We made an appointment for Monday morning, but when the time came, the ol' car wouldn't start at all. We tried jumping it with our other car. We tried giving it snuggles and loves and lots of gas and nothing worked. Crap.

Here's where the miracles start: So I start praying lots. We really can't afford to put money into the car, which is why we traded the truck in in the first place. I don't want to pay to have it towed to the shop but the thing won't start. We feel a little stuck and not sure what to do. Later that day I went to magnet something to the side of my fridge where I saw the first answer to my prayer. The phone number for Geico and our policy number... Oh yeah! We have roadside assistance with Geico! A phone call later, they towed the car for free off to the repair shop.

Naturally, the people at the repair shop assumed we were idiots and let us know the battery was dead and that's why it didn't start. We knew that... we killed it by trying to start the car all day. Well they soon figured out we weren't idiots when they thought they fixed the problem only to have the car break down on their post-fix test drive and ended up pushing it back to their shop.

Well after a battery charge, a new coil for the 3rd piston in the engine (or something like that), a new fuel pump and $1000 later, she's as good as new! But yeah. It was a thousand dollars. I'm convinced cars will never break down for less than a grand. I hope to someday be proven wrong.

So I stressed about that a lot. We haggled down the price quite a bit to make me comfortable with buying it in the first place and we felt like we got a really good deal. Until we ended up paying $1000 more than we expected. I was trying to come to terms with that and accept the fact that 1000 hard earned dollars were disappearing from savings and going toward something totally unexpected and then...

Naturally we had been in contact with our salesman through this whole process and kept him informed of what was happening. Fortunately, the dealership is one that Eric works with and this guy really liked us. However, he was not returning our phone calls or emails lately and we were getting a bit nervous. Today we got a hold of him and found out that he got approval to reimburse the entire amount of the repair! WOW!!! They'll be sending us a check this week. That is the answer I was hoping for in all my praying.

Let me just say, ask and ye shall receive. Pay your tithing and have faith. Never give up hope because the Lord knows you and your needs and just what you can handle. We would have been happy with much less-- but that's just the way the Lord works. He will bless you more than you expect if you let him.