Our New Ride

Well, I'm at home today. I got the flu yesterday and spent the day on the couch at home. Today I feel better (i.e. I can hold food down) but I'm still not up to speed. I didn't sleep very well at all last night and it's going to be a busy week.

I spent a lot of time last week reading about different vehicles. I checked out reviews, pricing and other info about a variety of SUV type cars. The wealth of information on the Net is invaluable if you are making a big purchase. The vehicle that kinda stuck with me was the Nissan XTerra. So, on Saturday we decided to go to the local Nissan dealer and test-drive an XTerra.

After a lot of bargaining, test-driving, considering and other -ings, we drove a 2006 XTerra off the lot. This is the first time that either of us has ever purchased a vehicle that is brand new so we are pretty excited.

The XTerra supposedly gets 17mpg city and 21 highway. I will be testing that the first full tank of gas I run through it. It has a 4.0L V6 engine that puts out 265 horsepower. It has 4x4 on the fly (meaning you can go into 4x4 at 60mph), is rear-wheel drive and also has 4 low. At 80mph it can still accelerate like a champ. The Painter and I took it out and did zero to ninety in pretty short order, for purely scientific testing reasons of course. The speedometer goes to 140 but I'm going to let that one go without testing. I've also had some fun testing the traction control and some other features in a snowy parking lot.

This thing should go anywhere my Ranger went but is a far more comfy ride and carries more people. The seats in the back fold down to make a big, flat, plastic-coated "bed" that will carry lots of gear and has tie-downs everywhere. There's a roof rack with a lot of available attachments for bikes, skis, etc. It is not as roomy as a larger SUV but it is comfortable and we were willing to make the space sacrifice for fuel economy and overall price.

Since it was an '06, not an '07, we got a lot of rebates and ended up with a pretty good deal. They gave me an excellent trade-in ($500 less than I paid for it new) on my Ranger. I also found out that the Ranger was a relatively expensive vehicle to insure, despite being about 4 years old. The brand-new Xterra only changed my insurance by $5 every six months!

Anyway, we are excited to have a new vehicle, but even more excited to get a car seat in the back. Now I'm going to go lay down before I start throwing up again.

PS: The pic is not our Nissan XTerra but it is identical...color and everything.