Julie's New Ride

A sad day has passed upon us. Julie's Saturn (she named it Sheila -- I don't name cars) was diagnosed with heart problems and the dealer stated that she needed a replacement. (Meaning we needed to spend about $2500-3500 for a new engine in a 2001 Saturn (moral of the story = not cost effective.) Soon after the diagnosis, Sheila made her desire to leave evident as she stopped wanting to GO. I guess older people shuffle around and don't have much pick-up-and-go . . . but I didn't think she was THAT elderly. Stupid Saturn. 100K miles and time for a new engine (my Altima is 1 year older with 10K more miles and still perfectly happy). Won't be returning to Saturn again.

So, in a whirlwind stream of events, we got approved and found a new car for Julie. We decided to "up size" - cause, ya know, we want to have kids someday, so it needs to be car seat friendly. We looked at Accord, Camry, Altima, and Mazda6. Well, we lucked into a trade-in that was WAY below blue book value. So, we bought it. Now, to introduce it to the world. Julie's New Mazda6!

It's a 2005 with only 32K miles! Quite a step up from a 2001 Saturn SL1 with 102K miles, eh? Here's some pics for you to enjoy!

Here's a front view. Julie asked if it was a "Julie car" - I'd say YES!

And an inside view. It's been well cared for - no spots or blemishes to the interior.
And the instrument cluster. As you can see - radio controls on the steering wheel (which I'm quite fond of!) The previous owner installed a Kardon iPod Drive + Play - but it doesn't seem to be functioning well. So, that LCD screen is probably going to disappear unless I can figure what's its malfunction.

We're happy that we've "upgraded." (But still very frustrated at the Saturn fiasco.) Hopefully it will behave well - and we'll probably take it on our road trip to Vegas this weekend to Julie's cousin's baby blessing. Yeah!