Wednesday, March 09, 2011

It's getting easier to be green

Up until last November, neither of our cars were terribly efficient. I had a 2002 Kia Sedona, he had a 1997 Jeep Wrangler. Both were bought used. The Kia was bought when our son still had a lot of equipment to haul around.

We were thinking about getting more efficient vehicles, but you know what the greenest car is? One that you already have that's in working condition. So we waited...and we dreamed of better than 20 miles to the gallon.

Then I was in a collision, and the Kia was replaced with a 1998 Toyota Camry. People, I regularly get over 30 miles to the gallon in that puppy, just tootling back and forth from work!

And then we had to replace the Jeep. This past weekend, we got a 2002 Honda Civic. It's even more efficient than the Toyota! Plus I work just a few miles from home! This is so exciting!!! Just as Big Oil is taking advantage of unrest in the Middle East to gouge consumers, we're thumbing our noses at them and benefiting local businesses at the same time!!

The Toyota was purchased at Lindsay Volkswagen. We went back to them last week, but they didn't have anything in our price range this time (though they had a sweet red Mini Cooper), so we got the Honda from Honda of Dulles. We had a great experience at each of their stores, and I've recommended them to friends. If you're in the market for a car, you really could not do better than to shop at either of their stores --- and they're even in our district!

(crossposted at Doorbell Queen.)

1 comment:

ms said...

Okay, with the Oxford American Dictionary in my lap, I am much surprised to find it necessary to concede that "tootle" is, in fact, a word:

2. [no obj., with adverbial of direction] informal, go or travel in a leisurely way: they were tootling along the coast.

The etymological information holds that "tootle" is a frequentative of "toot," which makes me wonder just what it is you're doing in that car on your way to work.

Moreover, I'm pretty sure that "tootling" is illegal in Virginia or, at the very least, will make a teen-aged boy go blind.