Farewell, my Blazer

The Blazer and I in May of 2007 south of Green River, Utah

We have officially stimulated the economy. Thank you congress for giving me an out.

John and I decided to trade in the Blazer using the Cash for Clunkers program. It is slightly offensive, because I did not consider my Blazer to be a "clunker." My Blazer was my friend. We went many places together. "She" helped me escape from Lubbock to Montana, and then to Illinois, and then to Colorado (twice!). We went all over Big Bend together. We went to some fun places around Glacier. We went to Canada several times. She was really just a great car!

The Blazer at Vail Pass, the site of her untimely injury.

This was one of the hardest decisions to make. To some it probably looked like it should have been easy, but it was not. They plan on taking all the "clunkers" to be crushed and shredded. It kills me and still nearly makes me cry to think about them doing this to my poor Blazer. If I had the $$ to keep it running and a place to store it I would have preferred to have kept her. The body is still really good and she could have served someone well. And the Blazer did not get THAT bad of gas mileage. It feels like when your horse hurts itself really bad and you have to shoot it in the head to put it out of pain. That is what it feels like. It sucks.

August 1, 2009 - My last day with the Blazer

We started the looking process this past week. John and I drove around and look on the different lots (Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, and Nissan) on Sunday. We found a few but thought we might wait till the middle of August to actually do anything. It was rather bad timing because John was out of town working this week. I, on an impulse, decided to go looking Tuesday morning. Bad idea.

Stop 1 - Toyota: The Toyota guy was a jerk. He actually said (when I asked about the Yaris specs) "You know I will not make any money off that car." He said this twice, which helped me decided that I would never buy anything there.

Stop 2 - Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler: I left the Toyota place and headed to the Nissan place to look at a Versa we saw there and happened to call my dad on the way there. He said I should check the Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler place since they were matching the value of your trade in (either $4500 or $3500). I was not so excited to but he talked me into it. I called them to see if they had anything on the lot we could afford and they said they did so I went on down to look. The sales guy (Tom) walked me out on the lot up to a car. I thought it must have stopped looking for the car he was going to show me and he says something like "This is it" and I am like "?Que? Seriously?!" It was actually a nice looking car! Not what I expected, since everything else I had been looking at were tiny iddy bitty munchkin/clown cars (that fell into our price range). The car he showed me was a Dodge Caliber (picture below). It had alot of things I liked and he let me take it out for a drive and it drove really nice. I told him I would think it over after we talked about numbers (I could only get $3500 for the Blazer, giving me $7000 off the car).

2009 Dodge Caliber SXT

Stop 3 - Nissan: So back to the Versa. All of the other dealerships I had been to were crawling with sales people. This place, not so much. There were 3 guys, and they were all busy. So I got to stand around for about 5 minutes or so. Finally I got some help and we went out and looked at the Versa. We crunched some numbers and found out that if I compared the cheep one and the more expensive one they really ended up being only about $1200 difference (after all the different discounts and such). These cars are tiny! They have tires that are smaller than most large pizzas. I took it for a test drive, and while it was ok, it was not great - especially after driving the Caliber.

So.....I call John that evening and talk to him about it. It is Tuesday night at this point (the week disappears after this). Wednesday we talked about it some more but we felt the Caliber was still to expensive and we were leaning towards the Versa. I called around and tried to find a better deal on the Caliber but was not working out. The dealer here in town sold the one I drove and they had one that was $1000 cheaper. Still to expensive, but better. So I talked to John about it again on Wednesday night and we decided to at least see if we can get a loan. John calls me back on Thursday morning to tell me we had been approved for a loan (we could afford)! Sweet! So we thought we would wait till he got home and see if we could find a better deal on the Caliber.

And then disaster strikes – the news stations come out and say that the Cash for Clunkers program is going to end at midnight that night. So I freak, break, and call Tom the sales guy. He said not to worry and come in Friday. Between Friday morning and Thursday night there are multiple conflicting reports about the program ending which really freaks me out. Friday morning it looks like we had to get it taken care of if we were going to get it by Friday at midnight. John does not get back till Friday at 4, so I do as much as I can before then. (I now wonder if these were false reports to make people panic and spend money)

The Blazers battery has died after not having been driven for a month and a half, so my aunt and uncle come over to jump me (thank goodness for them!). A long story later (trying to keep this post short!) we limp the Blazer down to the dealership. The dealership thinks they can get us a better loan so I decided to wait till John gets back before doing anything. Short version - John goes down to the dealership when he gets back, they try new loan, its no good, go back to original loan, not enough time to file paper work, must come back Saturday morning…

Soooooo...this morning we go back down, paper work is ready, we sign a bunch of stuff, get keys, and that is it. We stimulated the economy and drained our bank accounts for the next 5 years. I am now the proud owner of a Dodge Caliber. My first (possibly last) new car - ever!

John and I with our first big post-wedding purchase, and the car we will likely drive till we give it to one of our kids.

It was really hard to say goodbye to the Blazer. Look how many miles she had:
Hopefully the Caliber will get that many before she gives up.

I admit I cried when I had to say goodbye. I hope the Blazer is recycled into thousands of happy wonderful things so she can be reincarnated and live many more lives and bring other people as much happiness as she brought me. She will be deeply missed!!

RIP: the Blazer 1996-2009