finally!

We trekked to Oly once again on Saturday, starting our search for a new truck all over again. The hubby wanted to go to the Toyota dealership and ask them to search for a Toyota Tacoma like he wanted. We drove through the auto mall past the GMC dealership and out of the corner of my eye I spotted it. Well, not just "it", a whole row of them...Toyota trucks...all lined up, in the GMC lot.

Look! I said. There's a red one, like you wanted...what are they doing over here? We drove into the lot and took a closer look, a REAL close look...there it was, the EXACT truck he wanted. I mean, the EXACT truck. It wasn't sold, after all. It had been moved over to the GMC lot, along with a dozen other Toyota trucks!

We went around to the Toyota lot, several blocks away and inquired about it. "Oh yea", the salesman said. "That's our overflow lot. I forgot about that. That's where we put cars and trucks that we don't have room for over here."

Unbelievable. This guy almost lost a sale because he couldn't be bothered to check their inventory list and see if the truck had actually been sold!

Well, long story short...we bought it. My hubby and I are now the proud new owners of 2008 Toyota Tacoma crewcab 4WD pickup truck. Bright red, to boot.

This is the first new car or truck the hubby and I have ever bought in the 30+ years we've been married. We have always bought used. BUT, the new truck actually cost LESS than the used trucks we were looking at. We got $4000 off the cost by using our Costco membership, plus another $1000 off from a Toyota rebate they are now offering. It's such a relief to have a nice, reliable vehicle. Both of our cars are falling apart. In fact, in one week last month, the transmission went out on the hubby's car, then the clutch went out on the work truck he started driving when his car broke down, then the fuel tank fell apart in the '63 Corvette we own that he started driving when the truck broke down. The only vehicles we had left to drive were my blazer, which has no heat, a broken suspension, and a broken door panel (and I was driving it), or his motorcycle, and considering our lovely (not) Washington weather, it wasn't really an option. He finally had to borrow a friend's truck for a week!

Now the next question is do I keep driving my Chevy blazer with 168,000 miles on it, or drive his old Suzuki Grand Vitara with 140,000 miles on it? The blazer is definitely the nicer, more comfortable of the two, BUT the Suzuki has an extra year of driving on it, gets better mileage and has 4WD. Not to mention all the repairs that need to be made to the blazer. I'm thinking the better gas mileage will be the deciding factor.