On August 7th we were headed north on I-15 to go to a birthday party for one of Suzy's friend's daughter. We were getting ready to exit the freeway on 72nd South when about 1/2 mile before the exit the car in the lane next to us began to merge into our lane. To make a long story short, our front passenger tire blew out when we had to move onto the shoulder to avoid hitting the car that changed lanes into us and we wound up hitting the cement barrier quite hard, bouncing back out into traffic where we miraculously avoid colliding with anyone else and drifted to a stop back on the shoulder.
Our poor Avalon took quite a bit of damage during the accident. Fortunately, though we all were ok. Very, very shook up, but okay.
Here are images of the poor thing afterwards...
The Avalon was determined to be totaled. So we were prematurely thrust into the market for a new car to replace a car which we dearly loved. As a quick side note, we have nothing but good to say about how our insurance company (Geico) has helped and treated us through the process. By the Friday after the accident we had a check in our hands for the car and the replacement car seats.
So for the past month we've been looking at replacement cars. We have loved our Avalon for the past 2 years, but knew that we would eventually replace it with a 7 or 8 seat vehicle. So we started our search for that type of vehicle. We test drove:
- Toyota Sienna
- Honda Oddyssey
- Chevrolet Traverse
- Ford Flex
- Ford Explorer
All of these had their positives and negatives, but none seemed like a good fit, plus we were not sure we wanted to get a car loan, even a small one. About 3 weeks ago we test drove an Acura MDX and liked it a lot. It had a ride more similar to the Avalon, had a lot of desirable options, and fit our needs. So for the past 3 weeks we have driven all over Utah looking at different MDXs for sale. Eventually we found the one. It was the right exterior and interior color, had the right options, and most importantly for a good price. We bought our "new" 2005 MDX on Monday, and so far we like it... a lot. Here she is...
