My New Audi A6
March 20, 2011
I recently decided it was time for a new car. I have been driving my current vehicle, a Mercedes E350 for 5 years now. I have put 120,000 miles on the car and it has been an absolutely wonderful car. Suzanne’s car is getting long in the tooth too and I really don’t want to have to replace two at once. And it would be nice if we could hang on to the Honda for the kids to drive in a couple years when they get licenses.
The Mercedes has another 100K of miles left on it easy. So giving it to Suzanne now, she wont have any problem getting 5 more years out of and we can just deal with one car payment at a time. If things work out perfectly, she can keep getting hand me down cars from me while I get the new one. Yeah, I know, sounds perfect for me, but it actually works out well for us.
I have been doing some research on cars, but really had my heart set on a new Mercedes E350. Why not? This one has been the closest car I have owned to calling ‘Perfect’. And last year they came out with a updated model with some snazzy new features. I was vaguely considering a two seat roadster too such as the Mercedes SLK350. I am not really a two seater kind of guy, but the lines are nice and its actually cheaper.
Yesterday, with lots of data in hand, we set out to look at cars. I decided that I would go drive an Audi TTS and an A6. While in Germany on business before, I had rented an A8 and really liked it (for $70K one should!). The Audi dealer was our first stop. I quickly dismissed the TTS – not because of anything wrong with the car, just I like the bigger luxury car better. The A6 caught my eyes and I found it quite an attractive car. The interior is very nicely apportioned too. We took a test drive and fell in love with the handling and driving qualities of the car. It was really quite remarkable.
We talked a little bit of price with the dealer, but I was clear that I needed to go check out the Mercedes E350 because that’s where I had been leaning. He had no problem with that. In fact, he used to sell Mercedes so of course, got the ‘Why Audi is better’ spiel. But in a weird twist, he offered to take me over to the Mercedes Dealership and show me the E350. In fact, he wanted to take the Audi A6 over and park the two side by side to do a comparison. I had never heard of such a thing. Now, both the Audi dealership and the Mercedes dealership are owned by Chapman Automotive here in Tucson, so there is a little bit of a tie in.
So we drove the A6 over to the Mercedes dealer. My Audi dealer knew most of the Mercedes salesman. We took the E350 for a test drive and parked the cars side by side. And frankly, after a detailed comparison, it was no contest. The Audi, in my opinion, was the clear and easy winner. This flip flop came as a total surprise to me as I was thinking Mercedes all the way heading into town.
So, we went back worked the price a bit more and got it to a comfortable point. But I wanted to take some time and analyze my data and thoughts. So we broke to go get some food. Over the meal, it was obvious to all of use (Suzanne and Savannah were there too), that the Audi was the right car. A bit more time to make sure now was the right time to buy a new car (my yearly bonus from work helped!) and we headed back to Audi and did the deal.
I am really excited about this car! It caught me by surprise but the drive home through the mountain pass reaffirmed my thoughts.
Check out my new Audi A6 automobile photo gallery.
Our Home in Sonoita is For Sale
January 4, 2011
That’s hard to say, but yes, we have put our home in Sonoita, AZ for sale. Why? Well, at least its not because we have too. There is no impending job change (about 24 years and counting and quite happy) or any financial hardship reason for selling the house. We have just come to the decision that at this point in time, for our family, its probably the right thing to do and move back a bit closer to town.
I absolutely LOVE living in Sonoita. I have always wanted to live in the country and the last 8 years have been wonderful. But, being located 45 minutes from the nearest grocery store and a good hour from work has put a premium on time. And now with Sean in high school 45 minutes away, we are constantly on the go. Savannah is only a year or so away from high school and that will only make it harder. During football season, my daily routine was to get up at 5:30 and go to work dropping Sean at school on the way. When I left work, I would then pick him up after practice and return home usually about 7:30 pm. That’s a long day. Suzanne and Savannah were also pulled in similar directions for her dance classes in Sierra Vista.
The time away from the house as severely limited my workout time. Since Sean started high school, I have seen my workouts go from 5 or 6 days a week to maybe 1 – not good! The long days have also meant a lot more weekends where we felt like doing nothing.
So time is the primary reason for considering moving. I say considering because in this economic environment there is a strong likelihood that our house will not sell (and not convinced that would be a bad thing!). Since our move would be for convenience, we do not have to sell and will not be taking any old offer on the house. Of course, we can’t get what we could have gotten 2 or 3 years ago. One positive is that in the couple weeks before Christmas, 3 roughly comparable homes have sold in Sonoita – or is that bad 
Being a techno geek, I just had to put together a website to showcase the house and provide potential buyers with more info than typically available on a realtor page or a flyer. Plus, maybe we will only get serious buyers coming and looking at the house. Have a visit to Our Sonoita Home is For Sale website and let us know what you think.
We really don’t know what to expect here. Suzanne and Savannah are already looking at homes closer to Tucson (but not IN town) but I will wait for movement on the house. I do not make a good window shopper. Should we get the option to purchase a new home, we will likely downsize to since its not the distant in the future when the kids will head off to college and then their own homes.
Wish us luck!
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