Car troubles~Time to trade? Ugh.

Last Thursday I took my van (a 2006 Caravan—not even old enough to have problems!) into the dealership because it had a little shimmy. Nothing big, but I was afraid something was wrong with the brakes because it was doing it when I took off from a complete stop.
They told me that they had a “bulletin” on it, and they “fixed” it by re-routing the power steering line.

Yesterday we drove to Springdale to get parts for the Kenworth. On the way back home, we stopped at a stoplight. We noticed a horrible smell, and there was a huge puff of smoke when we took off. I managed to pull over, and there was NO power steering. I knew right then that somebody had messed up!

I called the dealership that had “fixed” it on Thursday, and they brought us a different van. They also took my van to their shop. The guy who came after it was one of their mechanics, and he found the problem immediately. He said they had used a different kind of clamp that wasn’t holding… so the hose had slipped off the power steering pump. All that smoke was actually steam—it was the fluid blowing all over the place, creating a steam when it hit the hot parts under the van.

On the way back to town, we were inspecting the van. It was a Chrysler Town & Country, a bit bigger than my Caravan, a year newer… had more miles & the check-engine light was on. It also wasn’t nearly as nice as our van. So we decided to cruise through the dealership to see what they had! LOL!

We found a really nice Chrysler Pacifica that we both fell in love with. I’m still not sure if we’re going to get it. We haven’t really made the deal yet, but we tried a little last night. In fact, we spent most of our day at the dealership yesterday!

This is the car we should have bought to begin with. We both loved them, and Mike hated the idea of a van. I begged for a van. Why? I dunno. LOL! He will actually DRIVE the Pacifica. He has driven the van to the donut shop across town twice since we have had it (and we’ve had it since Dec 05!). And he only drove then because he really wanted donuts. LOL!!

Trading cars is so frustrating. They want to give you about half of what your car is worth for trade-in, and then they want you to pay more than what the other one is worth for their car. Ugh. I thought we had reached some decent numbers by the time we left last night… We’ll see what happens today. We may be driving a new (well, different! It’s a 2005) vehicle by the end of the day… or maybe not!

Only problem I see with the Pacifica? It's not red. I love red. I'd choose red over anything else. Always. ;)