Boyd's New Car! 2004 Yukon Denali

This is Boyd's new (used) 2004 Yukon Denali! We bought it Tuesday night, June 2nd from a fellow who had to sell to reduce his debt-load so he could refinance his house. We paid him $13,900 cash and actually wrote the check to his lender so he could pay off his car loan. He had a 6 year car loan of $58K at 0.9% financing, so his pay-off was $14000 even. We did take it to the dealer and had them check it over for repairs and maintenance. We spent $1700 doing all the needed service, replacing the battery, replacing the rear brake lights, and replacing the driver-side mirror which was broken to smithereens when the owner backed out of his garage and whacked it hard! Other than the needed service and repairs, the car is in pristine condition and looks gorgeous. The color is charcoal grey, so it is not black but a dark grey with lots of flickers in the paint.
The owner upgraded the exterior lights on the car ... very bling-bling!

Here is the upgraded interior, including wood paneling instrumentation and wood steering wheel that normally goes on a Cadillac Escalade.

The middle two seats are captains chairs and are heated, just like the front driver & passenger chairs. The leather seats are two-toned beige and cashmere (doesn't that sound posh? Ha Ha!).

Here is the 3rd row bench seat. The seats are split, so either one can be pushed forward for storage. Both seats can also easily be removed for storage behind the middle captains chairs. So now this car comfortably seats 7 passengers, just like our Yukon XL seats 7 passengers.

Here is the kids favorite feature of the car! The 17" DVD/entertainment system complete with wireless speakers, game console & video player connections. So if we had a Wii or a Nintendo system (which we never plan to buy ever, ever, ever, ever, ever....), we could bring along the game systems on a family trip and the kids could play in the car. For now, we're sticking with Brent's movies "Bolt" and "Cars" that he carried with him the past two days waiting to watch in Daddy's new car!

This is the front instrumentation panel again showing the wood grain trim and the in-dash navigation system. The navigation screen actually plays DVD movies as well, and it can receive TV signals to watch TV. You can play a movie on both the front & flip-down screens or you can watch two different movies at the same time. So the kids can watch "Bolt" while Mommy enjoys a historical movie or anything else with a little more intellectual stimulation. The navigation screen works very well...meaning it already distracted me when I drove the car to fill up the gas tank.

Here is the AC 110 V. outlet and the video game input jack. So now Boyd or Mark can plug in their computers while driving in the car! This helps you recharge your computer battery or just do computer work on the road.

The back hatch open. Not super roomy like our XL when the rear seats up but just fine for Boyd and the stuff he needs to carry with him to work and practices. He can always fold the seats forward to create more cargo area.

The happy driver looking in his new driver side mirror -- a mere $600 replacement after the previous owner smashed the mirror backing out of his garage a little too hastily!

As the scriptures say to be grateful for "all things", in this case we are very grateful for a cracked mirror on the Yukon and the Jeep's radiator leaking again. The cracked mirror on the Yukon made the owner realize he had to sell the car for below blue book pricing if he wanted to sell it quickly to pay off his loan. The leaking radiator made us realize it was time to buy a new car for Boyd. Lindsey had told me last March to promise ourselves "at the next repair, we buy a new car". So when the NEW radiator leaked again on the garage last Tuesday, I moved our car savings out of HSBC and into Wells Fargo. I also happened to read the June issue of the Ensign where it focused on staying out of debt (the other miracle here is that I read the Ensign cover-to-cover as soon it came....almost never happens, I hate to admit). Boyd and I fasted and prayed about whether we should buy new "new" or stick to our budget of what we had in car savings. We felt strongly we should follow the counsel of the Ensign and avoid a car payment. So after Boyd test drove the Escalade and realized how much he really liked the larger SUV (and argued that we needed a big car with 4 kids and all their stuff), I looked in AutoTrader and CarMax for Escalades and Yukon Denalis (same cars) within our price range. Lo and behold, this car ad showed up but the photo was so poor, the ad did not get a lot of traffic. I e-mailed the owner on Friday, didn't hear from him all weekend, but then he called me on Monday and asked if we could look at the car that night. Boyd was thrilled since he had "lost" the Escalade over the weekend because it was sold to another customer for the same price the dealer offered it to us while Boyd took Jocelyn on the Indian Princesses camp-out instead of car shopping. It is amazing how things truly do work out for the best. We got a better car than the Cadillac Escalade for $10K less, and Boyd was blessed for putting his family first. This has been a true miracle!

P.S. This morning Boyd commented, "You know, that Jeep is running GREAT now! Maybe we should keep it for running errands around town." I said, "Well, I think it is time to sell it while it is still running "GREAT" and put the money into our car savings account!" So the Jeep goes up for sale next week in the AutoTrader. Mark Lee is crying over the prospects of saying good-bye to the Jeep. It was his car since he was a little baby. I just look forward to never talking/arguing with the Tustin Jeep Service reps for the rest of my life. No wonder Chrysler is in chapter 11.