I don’t remember exactly when or why Susan and I started talking about buying a new car. Wait, I do remember why we started talking about it — because Susan said our Isuzu Rodeo was “embarassing to drive.” Other than the hail damage from the freak hail storm we had this past July and the broken gas gauge (we just fill up every 300 miles now), the car looks and runs relatively good. It’s a bit pitted out right now, half full of kid toys and fast food bags, but it would be difficult to blame that on Isuzu.

So, Susan and I came to an agreement. If I agreed to sell the Geo Tracker and the Isuzu Rodeo, Susan said I could buy a new car. For the past couple of months, I’ve been kicking around what kind of vehicle I wanted. Four doors (due to car seats and such) were a must. A bit of cargo space would come in handy as well. After quite a bit of searching and research, this past weekend Susan and I stopped by the local Chevy dealership to check out the 2006 Chevy Avalanche.

After a couple of days of checking, researching, and even haggling, I am the proud new owner of a 2006 Chevy Avalanche. Chevy/GM is offering a $5,000 cash back refund, plus we got around $2k off on top of that, bringing the $37,500 sticker price to down under $30k. It’s black, has four doors, a Bose stereo and lots of cool little features that I’m sure I’ll write about soon enough.

The only downside? It is my sad duty to inform you that both the Rodeo and the Tracker are now for sale.