Greatest Travel Purchase We Ever Made
2008 Honda Pilot
The best travel purchase we have ever made was our Honda Pilot. It is not necessarily the car, but the possibilities it opened for us. It seats eight and is much more reliable than the car we were replacing. Since our family is constantly changing in size, being able to fit everyone was critical. Before we had our Pilot we had two cars that each fit five people. For six months, we were a family of six with those two cars. That meant we always had to make a decision: drive two cars or squeeze all four kids, unsafely, in the backseat. Well, don’t judge us too much, but we usually made the unsafe decision on trips around town and the occasional hour-long drive to Memphis. This prevented us from being very adventurous, and even forced us to split the family up for Thanksgiving that year (the kids dispersed amongst their grown-up siblings) while we visited our own parents.
So we bought a used 2008 Honda Pilot with two wheel drive with 92,000 miles on it for about $11,000 dollars. We didn’t only need a bigger car at that point, but a newer car than the one I was driving in the spring of 2016. When I headed out to the car dealership that night in Memphis, about 80 miles away, I was unsure that the car would make the trip. My old Jeep proved me right when it broke down on the side of I-55. After a AAA call and some impatient waiting, I showed up at the dealership in a tow truck. I announced to the salesman, “Don’t think you have leverage just because I can’t drive myself home. I’m prepared to rent a car if I feel like I’m not getting a good deal.” However, being a millennial, I had done my research. I had watched the internet for the car I wanted to come up, either a Honda Pilot or Toyota Highlander at a specific price point, and had already spoken with the salesman over the phone.
Why this car?
Three rows of seats – We needed at least six seats for all of us, and seating eight was a valuable bonus.
Hondas are reliable: I knew I wasn’t going to be able to afford something new or even close to new, so my goal was something with under 100,000 miles that could make it over 200,000. Hondas are one of the few makes that I knew could do it, as long as we took care of the vehicle along the way.
Good price: I had a little over $6,000 in our emergency fund after spending a couple hundred fixing the last issue on my Jeep. I felt this was an appropriate emergency knowing that my old car would continue to need repairs. I was comfortable putting $5,000 down, negotiating my trade in, and making sure the overall price allowed for the monthly payment to be near $100 (knowing I would have to push a longer term loan). Now I already intended to pay it off far sooner, but with four more months until we both got raises at work I needed to know exactly where that money could come from in our monthly budget. It gave me peace of mind that for now I only had to come up with $100 per month, but also the knowledge that I would be able to increase the payments as the money became available. This method was fruitful for us and we had the entire loan paid off in two years. Then we added the Pilot’s monthly payment to our other car loan (a 2014 Toyota Prius) which allowed us to finish paying that one off the next year. Now all the money we used to pay towards car loans has been added to our monthly student loan payments.
Two wheel drive/gas mileage: You may be thinking, “Does anyone look for two wheel drive?” Yes, my Pilot drives like the minivan my mom drove when I was growing up, but with an SUV body. However, we live in the South. When there are a couple of snowflakes, people freak out and cancel everything for days at a time. So harsh winter weather conditions were not a big concern, but fuel economy was. I don’t get the best gas mileage, but the weaker the engine and wheel drive, the better mileage per gallon. We get about 22-26 miles per gallon. It takes an extra few seconds to get up to 70 on the highway, but my masculinity is just fine. I would be driving a minivan right now if the price point was better.
How It Improved Our Travel Life
Since we bought our Pilot, it has allowed us to take trips as a whole family whenever we want. The size also allows for the kids to invite friends on adventures, it prevents visiting family and friends from having to rent a car, it gives us the opportunity to take more students on college visits (reimbursing a car trip is a lot cheaper for our school than renting a bus), and it has even comfortably fit all six of us, with our suitcases and two pups, on multiple cross country road trips. Our first long road trip as a family of six (and two dogs) was four weeks long. We spent the month of June 2016 visiting family and friends in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Michigan (with some fun adventures in Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine, New York, and Ohio as well). We’ve driven to Cape Cod for Thanksgiving multiple times, took the kids on their first trip to New York City, made several trips to see family in Michigan, and spent countless weekends in Nashville.
And if Sarah has her way, we might just convert to a campervan SUV in the future so we can experience that #vanlife she craves.