{"id":18605,"date":"2010-09-18T20:55:21","date_gmt":"2010-09-19T02:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=18605"},"modified":"2010-09-18T21:20:28","modified_gmt":"2010-09-19T03:20:28","slug":"the-new-car-2010-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/18\/the-new-car-2010-edition.html","title":{"rendered":"The New Car (2010 Edition)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Before ...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a few months of fiddle-farting around<\/a> (and<\/a>, really<\/a>, honestly<\/a>, about<\/a> 3-5 <\/a>years<\/a> of Hey We’re Really Seriously Considering It Now procrastination), we finally bought our replacement for the van.<\/p>\n

As a recap, we’ve had the 2000 Toyota Sienna since before Katherine was born — in fact, we got it explicitly as part of our pre-baby prep (it replaced Margie’s old Acura hatchback, another good car that was ill-suited to baby hauling). \u00a0It \u00a0has served long and honorably, through good weather and bad, visiting relatives, sheets of plywood and other building materials, short commutes and cross-country hauls. \u00a0A good car.<\/p>\n

But it was beginning to show its age. \u00a0The power train was all in good shape (due to regular maintenance), but the various bits and bobs were beginning to deteriorate — the door handle on the power door was broken, the power window on the passenger side only intermittently worked, little plastic thingummies were beginning to snap off or break, etc.<\/p>\n

Early on I wanted to go with Subaru — we’ve been pleased with my 2004 Impreza, especially with its All-Wheel Drive here in intermittently snowy Colorado. We’ve driven the Forrester a few times as a rental on vacation, and I’d thought that would work well. But in the past few years, Subaru redesigned their classic Outback into something that \u00a0get classified either as a large wagon or a small 4-door SUV. \u00a0The result is pretty much as large as a Forrester, but even more roomy and comfy inside. \u00a0Thus, we purchased a 2011 Subaru Outback 2.5i Premium<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More importantly, it’s large enough that we can get around town carrying five (i.e., when the ‘rents visit); the back seat is quite wide enough for all the butts involved (as tested by our own), but the leg room makes it quite comfy even with the front seats pushed way back.<\/p>\n

The dimensions had to be smaller than our old Sienna (193.5″ long, 73.4″ wide). The Outback is five inches shorter, a bit under 2″ narrower (188.2″ x 71.7″). \u00a0That will be something of a relief in our very tight \u00a0garage.<\/p>\n

Mileage is a better than the van, though not wildly faboo — 22\/29 (CU rates overall at 24). \u00a0Acceleration is not snappy compared to some other competing cars in class, but it’s smooth and fast enough. \u00a0It also has a continuous variable transmission, which avoids a lot of revving and jerkiness (it also has a pseudo-manual override, so you can use steering wheel paddles to up- and down-shift). It’s also a PZEV<\/a> vehicle due to its good emissions and clean manufacture.<\/p>\n

The purchase process at Go Subaru Arapahoe was as (relatively) painless as one might expect. \u00a0We’d met with one of the sales peeps (Matt Osborne) there on a couple of times, who’s a very personable young guy who’s part-time in sales and most-time in the engineering\/maintenance side of things. He was helpful, patient, and pleasant, and as such brought in the sale. \u00a0He (and “Jenny” at the dealership) managed the final sales job. \u00a0(It was all made easier by the fact we’d already arranged for our own financing on favorable \u00a0terms.) \u00a0The whole process took about two hours, including choosing the particular vehicle …<\/p>\n

Well, we’d delayed our purchase long enough that Subaru had shifted from the 2010 models to the 2011. \u00a0Which meant we had pretty much all the colors to choose from in the package and feature set we were looking at.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
... and after.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The whole purchase was tough on Katherine. \u00a0She’s known the Sienna her entire life, and that’s generally been the car she’s traveled in since she’s been an infant. \u00a0And, alas, she’s gotten Sensitivity and Nostalgia genes reinforced from both parents. \u00a0So the idea of getting rid of The One True Car (Of Which All Others Are But Shadow) was wrenching.<\/p>\n

We tried to make up for it by letting her choose the color, and she ended up choosing “Graphite Gray Metallic,” which, while not my top choice, was perfectly acceptable.<\/p>\n

(It was still \u00a0tough for her leaving the Sienna behind at the dealership, having gotten a good trade-in price for it.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, there was not much more to \u00a0it. \u00a0After signing all the intent-to and yeah-that’s-what-we-want docs, we sat around while they did all the detailing and gassing up, the moment broken only by a stint in one of the Finance guys to actually, y’know, pay <\/em>for the thing.<\/p>\n

And then Matt gave us the Final Briefing (e.g., this is the carpeting, do not eat it), and we drove off.<\/p>\n

In our new car.<\/p>\n

Woot!<\/p>\n

I don’t expect we’ll be doing this routine for some years yet — the Impreza’s about 7 years old, so it’s got a few years left in it. \u00a0I suspect, when we get to that point, we’ll end up with something small and hybridized and high-economy. \u00a0But that’s well into the future.<\/p>\n

For now … we have a new car. \u00a0And are pretty pleased with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a few months of fiddle-farting around (and, really, honestly, about 3-5 years of Hey We’re Really Seriously Considering It Now procrastination), we finally bought our replacement for the van. As a recap, we’ve had the 2000 Toyota Sienna since before Katherine was born — in fact, we got it explicitly as part of our … Continue reading “The New Car (2010 Edition)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cars","category-parenting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/outback-kay-margie.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":128137,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/22\/the-universal-new-yorker-cartoon-caption.html","url_meta":{"origin":18605,"position":0},"title":"The Universal "New Yorker" Cartoon Caption","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-Sep-15 7:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Which, for a variety of personal reasons, is a hell of a lot funnier now than it would have been six months ago. A New Caption That Works for Every 'New Yorker' Cartoon And it's not \"Christ, what an asshole.\" View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31131,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/05\/are-we-there-yet.html","url_meta":{"origin":18605,"position":1},"title":"Are we there yet?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Nov-12 6:24am","format":false,"excerpt":"From today's XKCD (http:\/\/xkcd.com\/1130\/), \"Poll Watching\". (Hover caption: \"The choices we make Tuesday could have MASSIVE and PERMANENT effects on Nate Silver's blog!\")Google+: Reshared 1 times Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3452,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/11\/19\/less_with_moore.html","url_meta":{"origin":18605,"position":2},"title":"Less with Moore","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 19-Nov-02 6:44am","format":false,"excerpt":"Spinsanity has another fine skewering of Michael Moore and his film, Bowling for Columbine. Putting aside Moore's claim to be in it for the humor, the column points out the...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32847,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/22\/elvis-has-left-the-building-cosmic-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":18605,"position":3},"title":"Elvis has left the building (cosmic edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 22-Mar-13 10:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"Worth clicking through to the cartoon just to read the ToolTip caption. \u00a0(h\/t +Amy Shira Teitel)Reshared post from +Jason MajorLOL @ this. ;-)(Via\u00a0http:\/\/xkcd.com\/1189\/) View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129494,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/15\/and-one-last-alan-rickman-thought.html","url_meta":{"origin":18605,"position":4},"title":"And one last Alan Rickman thought","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 15-Jan-16 10:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The caption reads, \u201cHere\u2019s to the best damned antagonist a guy could ask for.\u201d(Original: http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/cartoons\/daily-cartoon\/bonus-daily-cartoon-remembering-alan-rickman) \u00a0 View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/01-14-16-rickman-10005B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/01-14-16-rickman-10005B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/01-14-16-rickman-10005B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2216,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/24\/sure_guvner_he.html","url_meta":{"origin":18605,"position":5},"title":"“Sure, guvner, he has a flat right up behind the clock face!”","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 24-Jul-02 8:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"The content of the story aside, I find it amusing that the BBC, in describing the arrest of an al-Qa'eda suspect in Denver, uses a (mediocre) photo of downtown with...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}