The Ah Hah Moment

I'm so happy. Vanny is back!!!! My little 2000 Dodge Caravan has a new transmission and is road worthy again.

We bought the van in 2000 when it was almost a year old and had about 10,000 miles on. When I dropped the transmission a couple of weeks ago, we spent a small amount of time looking for a replacement. Basically going for 3-4 year old vans, with 60,000 - 80,000 miles on them.

Searching over Washington & Oregon we found several likely suspects in the $8,000-10,000 price range. We started locally and finally were headed down to Portland when the Farm Boy & I looked at each other and said, "What ARE we doing?" A new transmission will cost roughly $2,500 and even if we have to throw a new engine in it later, for a minimum of $5,000 total we'd still have a rig who's mechanical history we know inside and out that should run happily for another 100,000 miles.

Hmmm.

We made a U-turn at the state border.

You know, if we just had money burning a hole in our pocket - buying another vehicle would have been fine. But we have college aged kids, a few unfortunate credit cards and a mortgage on our home. We have been counselled to get and stay out of debt. We've avoided "growing up" financially for (cough) ... a long time. No time like now to change that.

So fix "Vanny" it was. While I doubt it will make it another 10 years or 200,000 miles, climbing into my little van was sweet. 

The cool people may cringe when they find themselves riding in a minivan but in my book it's still "a good ride."
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