It's Here!

Way back in March I wrote about looking for a new car for Ben. We found what we wanted, the newly redesigned 2010 Subaru Outback, and decided that for the first time ever, we'd actually order a car made just for us. That way it would have everything Ben wanted, starting with the hard-to-find six-speed manual transmission and ending with a color all three of us liked, cypress green. The last car we bought off the dealer's lot was silver, and I'll never do that again. I think half the cars in America are some shade of silver and I spend way too much time trying to find mine in shopping center parking lots.

We placed the order on March 18 and hoped to have it for Ben's birthday the end of May.

Well, that didn't happen. Our dealer just missed the deadline for ordering 2010 models, so he had to put it in for 2011, at no extra charge to us. That was a problem and a solution we could live with. A mid-June delivery was predicted, and we planned a big car trip up to Maine for the end of July.

But mid-June came and went. The end of June the dealer thought the car would be here soon, so we sold our old car. Then it was early July, then mid-July and we were living with just one car and no sign of the new one. The dealer believed that production was being held up due to a change in Maryland's emission standards. Well, okay, but we needed our new car!

With just days to go before our big car trip vacation, things were getting a bit tense. I don't know who was more relieved when the car finally showed up on the delivery truck yesterday, the salesman or us. I do know there were smiles all around when we picked it up today. Doesn't Ben look happy?

Since Ben and I pool all our money, I couldn't actually buy him a car for a birthday present with my own money. So the "present" part of all this is that I did all the shopping, negotiating, paperwork, and follow-through for the deal. While I discussed decisions with him, Ben got a free pass on all the hassle that accompanies buying a car, a present which he really enjoyed, especially given the unexpected problems with our order.

We both love the new car, but I'm already thinking that when it comes time to replace my Accord, now eight years old with almost 100,000 miles, I'll buy something off the lot. But it won't be silver!