The other day I was goofing around on Wikipedia, and for some reason I bumped into the entry for the Ford Pinto, a completely little econo-car from the 70's. Perhaps more significant was that it was one of my very first cars. So I decided to make a list of all the cars that I/Kristie & I have owned. I started looking for pictures, and that's how we got here.
2002 Honda CRV
After we sold the Cruiser and I had found our latest Accord, it was time to focus on a car for Kristie. It needed to be ultra-reliable and comfortable, but not a minivan. I think the Sienna had finally exorcised the last of the minivan demons from my body. We both wanted something that was 4 wheel drive, as we'd grown to like that feature in the Cruiser, even if it had been used sparingly. We had given up on the third row seating option, it would only be a dreaded minivan or a big SUV that could satisfy that itch, and with the price of gas beginning to soar, the big SUV was out. So I put all the data into my analysis machine and out spat the following choices: Subaru Outback Wagon or Honda CRV.
Kristie liked the way the Outback was styled as we had actually admired them from afar for years. We liked our little old Justy, so Subaru wasn't an uncomfortable brand for us to think about. We didn't know a lot about the CRV, Kristie's friend had one and truthfully, Kristie was very unimpressed. Her memory of it was that it was incredibly small and uncomfortable, especially in the passenger seat. So it appeared that the likely car for us to buy was the Subaru, we just had to find one that would fit my criteria: price and condition.
I looked around for a while and test drove a couple. One time, I brought the girls with me on a test drive to get their impressions of the car. While it was favorable, it wasn't glowing from any of us. My nits were that this particular car had a rattle in the driver side door and that while it was generally a nice car, it wasn't as nice as even my older (and recently acquired) Accord. Another condition of the deal was that we were going to trade in the van. While I knew that we'd make more money selling it, we just didn't want to go through the hassle of selling it. We'd just sold the Cruiser and while it went fairly smooth, we were growing tired of the whole car game. 
We just wanted to hand the keys to the van to somebody and take something else. I suppose I was also thinking that if we were doing buy and trade type of deal, we'd have a little more leverage in the overall deal...wishful thinking probably. The "dealer" where the Subaru was at was really a guy that did a few deals a month, kind of an auto broker. Nice enough guy really. We began to talk about his car and cars in general. He noticed the dealer tag on the Accord (it was only a couple of weeks old to us) and commented that he knew those guys really well. They too, were an auto broker kind of place, but a much larger operation. I commented that I was planning on going over to see them to test drive a CRV that they had over there. To my surprise, he said he knew all about it, as it was his vehicle. Apparently, this network of brokers kind of feed the bigger guys to keep their inventory fluffed up. If the car sold, he got a piece of the deal...kind of like consignment. But that really wasn't going to help me in the deal and truthfully, I was still convinced that we were going to get an Outback, just not his.
We just wanted to hand the keys to the van to somebody and take something else. I suppose I was also thinking that if we were doing buy and trade type of deal, we'd have a little more leverage in the overall deal...wishful thinking probably. The "dealer" where the Subaru was at was really a guy that did a few deals a month, kind of an auto broker. Nice enough guy really. We began to talk about his car and cars in general. He noticed the dealer tag on the Accord (it was only a couple of weeks old to us) and commented that he knew those guys really well. They too, were an auto broker kind of place, but a much larger operation. I commented that I was planning on going over to see them to test drive a CRV that they had over there. To my surprise, he said he knew all about it, as it was his vehicle. Apparently, this network of brokers kind of feed the bigger guys to keep their inventory fluffed up. If the car sold, he got a piece of the deal...kind of like consignment. But that really wasn't going to help me in the deal and truthfully, I was still convinced that we were going to get an Outback, just not his.When I bought my Accord from these guys, I was really impressed. I was out of there in only about 30 minutes! I've spent more time in Target trying to buy something. So with a positive attitude about the dealership but a so-so opinion of the CRV (based upon nothing really), I went a test drove the car. And loved it. It was spunky quick, handled great and was very comfortable. It had a nice tan leather interior, looking very much like the interior of the Sienna. It had a sun roof (Kristie's desire...but not a requirement mind you). It seemed very comfortable in both the front and back seats. Plus it folded all up and left a surprisingly large interior for hauling junk. Seemed like it was a winner. Now to the deal: I had to unload the van. We sat down (wasn't going to be a half hour this time) and they shot me a price for the van. It was $1500 lower than what we owed. I wasn't in the mood to devour that number. So I figured we were stuck. But the sales guy, smelling a sale, had another idea. He called a couple of these independent little guys to see if they had a customer looking for something similar. He called a couple and they hit a number higher than the dealership, but still more than I wanted to eat. Being skilled at reading upside down, I noticed the card of the guy that I had talked to the day before. I had mentioned the van, but didn't provide a lot of details, especially negative ones! He called the guy and while he was mulling it over, I took control of the conversation, since we were "old" friends. I basically sold the van to the guy...and he shot out the very price we were looking for. It all worked out great (God is good). Kristie and I signed a couple of forms, and got the heck out of there in our new CRV, glad to see the Sienna with its insane power door in our rear view mirror.
The CRV has been the car we wanted and then some. I put a hitch on it so we could mount a bike rack on it, and we lugged 4 bikes up the mountain this summer, plus 3 tents, all our gear and the 4 of us. We were loaded to the top. Too bad it rained and we didn't get to use any of it. The girls find it pretty comfortable and all in all, even though it's smaller, I think it satisfies our needs as well as any car can.