Colin suprised me tonight and took me to look at cars at the local dealership!
His Ford Ranger truck (currently in the dealership's shop) needs a new engine, and it's 10 yrs old...so he is going to take it out of the shop and replace the engine himself as that's the only thing really wrong with it. Then he plans to just use it around town to haul things/etc and use the new car as the primary vehicle. We'll use the truck until it can't go anymore, hopefully we can get a few more good years out of it. I am going to hang on to my car (mercury,sable) until after we're married and then sell it and use the money for that as extra savings/etc since we won't need two car type vehicles. We need the truck for towing/hauling things as he's always building things, and we need a more energy efficient vehicle with space to it for our new family.
The new vehicle is going to be a 2008 Ford Escape XLT (4WD). I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!
We looked into getting a Ford Escape Hybrid- but they are sooo not even worth it. It would take about 15 yrs for it to be worth it gas wise- not a good expense! We researched a lot on it- so we're not going to do a hybrid one- they're about $10,000 extra...and you really won't be saving any money because yes, you'll be paying less in gas- but your car note will be considerably more....and it'll take years before it really "pays for itself" as far as gas goes. The regular non-hybrid model though is good on gas- so that's great for us! It gets better gas milage as a SUV than my car does!
Do any of you have Escapes or know anyone who owns one?? Do you like them? Pros? Cons? We're going tomorrow to sign the papers probably. We are fortunate too- Colin's dad used to work for Ford Motors....so we are getting a huge break on the price of the vehicle- so we're definitely blessed to be saving a little as far as that goes.
Here's the model we're looking at!!!!
that's kind of an ugly picture of it- it doesn't do it justice! i swear it's really cute!
http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/escape/
(this is a picture of what it looks like- only ours is going to be fire red