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Goodbye Mr. Weasley. Hello Brienne of Tarth

5/25/2014

 
I bought Mr. Weasley over 6 years ago while still working in Carlsbad.

Mr. Weasley is/was a Honda Fit and stood me well.
  • Many road trip to Arid-zone-ia
  • Hauling me and my metal tools to and from various workshop
  • The weekday trips to and from work in Carlsbad, Norco and now downtown San Diego
  • NO accidents
  • NO major repairs but lots of tires, oil changes, windshield wipers, and a few other standard maintenance items.


Many days I was getting about 40 miles per gallon, above the rating given for the car.

I drove Mr. Weasley over 170,000 miles and I thought I would drive him well over 250,000 miles but it just seemed time.
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I had been looking at a possible new car for a week or two. I looked at a 100% EV but I could not get to work and back on one charge as the drive to work, one way is 67 miles.  The nearest charging station is about 5 blocks away but only has 3 units and there might be chance that I would not be able to get a charge and it would take 3+ hours. Then there is the issue of road trips - I would have to a different car because there are large swaths of dry spots, that don't have them yet, between the house and places I go for workshops. PLUS they are very expensive. Sorry folks, if I am going to get a $25,000 car I want it to be a luxury car.

I looked at other small cars possibly another FIT so I could still get good milage but not pay a fortune for a new vehicle and then I pondered the hybrid cars.   I set my limit at $22,000 and looked at those by Honda, Ford, Toyota and just a glance at the other makers. Not only should the car be a hybrid but have room for my stuff when I take a road trip, hold 4 people easily (which the Smart car does not do despite it being very very cute), and give me 45 mpg or more, almost 50 mpg would be best,  or it would not be worth getting; and that really narrowed it down to the Prius. 


The Toyota Memorial Day sale was this weekend so I did my research and knew I wanted either the Prius-C Model 2 or the regular Prius Model 2.  I drove both. Then regular Prius which is bigger than the C is nice but their new center console certainly has all the bells and whistles BUT it is a two layer weird divider between the driver and passenger and it made me feel claustrophobic. Oh, it gets a bit less in the MPG range and cost more than the C.
Picture
Looking at the center console from "above"
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Center console side view
I drove the C first and it was peppy, then I drove the regular model and then got back in the C. 

The C it was. Even though it has slightly less cargo space than Mr. Weasley, it is a nice car and before we started to haggle over the price it came in at $21K+ well within my budget with the listed mpg as 53 city / 46 highway.    In the end I got $1800 trade in for Mr. Weasley, plus another 2K off the sticker and with my great credit score I snagged 0.0% financing for 36 months.

Here is my new car in the driveway.  I have located a Brienne of Tarth sticker to put on the back hatch too.
Picture
Brienne of Tarth a.k.a M'Lady

Views from the new Job

5/4/2014

 
I have been at the new job/project for two weeks now. And this is what is outside the building I work in.

YUP, that is the USS Midway and a few other Carriers that are currently in port, in the San Diego harbor. 

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    About Laurie

    Laurie lives in central Texas with Erich, a.k.a. "the shop elf", her hubby of 35+ years and Cowboy Boots, the cat; her metals studio including 100+ hammers and 300+ chasing tools; her sewing studio which has a sewing machine, a closet filled with fabric, hundreds of skeins of embroidery floss and perle cotton, silk and other materials, and Mrs. King the dress dummy; two weaving looms, assorted knitting needles, tubs of yarn; lots of books; plus a plethora of geeky tech gadgets, computers, and more.

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