Shameless bragging

I got a new car this weekend! It's a Nissan Versa, and I lovelovelove it!


To fully understand how awesome this is, let me give a little background.

Two years ago, well, more specifically, two years and seven weeks ago, Skeeter wrecked my car. It was a good little car, a Nissan Altima. But he wrecked it pretty badly. The good part is that it was still completely road-worthy. It drove just fine. The bad part is that it looked awful. Beyond awful. The front grille was missing entirely, the hood was crumpled, and the windshield was cracked.

Awful.

But the estimates for repair were more than the car was worth. Since Skeeter was in an unfortunate period of unemployment (to borrow a phrase from The Michael), getting a new car was out of the question.

Still, I liked the car. It had a great ride, and it was easy to handle. I liked it much, much more than our Honda Passport, despite the whole wreck thing, so I was reluctant to get rid of it. It's been having more and more troubles though. My dad and my sister's boyfriend completely overhauled it this past Christmas, not to mention the new belt and alternator that it needed more recently.

In short, it was time to move on. We had decided this about a month ago, and we had been window shopping for a new vehicle since then. I decided early on that I wanted a car rather than an SUV. I drove the new Altima, but I didn't really like it. It felt too cramped or something. Strangely, the car that I got is actually smaller than the Altima, but it didn't feel like it. The interior feels like the car is bigger than it actually is. Plus, it's a 6-speed manual transmission. I haven't had a manual transmission in years, and I've missed it.

As a bonus, Skeeter found out (in a completely offhand conversation) that as an employee of his new company, he gets a discount at Nissan. I had already decided that's what I wanted, so that little perk completely rocks, and it saved us about $2500 with no effort at all.

There are a few little things that I've found that I don't like (it doesn't have map lights, there's not a mirror on the driver's side visor), but those are easily remedied. Overall, it's exactly what I wanted.