Life has been a whirlwind these past few months. In a good way.
Yesterday, I bought the first new car I’ve ever financed on my own. (I’ve financed cars on my own before, but they were always used.) Actually, it’s an SUV — a 2022 Hyundai Tucson SEL.
The need for an SUV became apparent as we were moving out to this little place on five acres back in December.
First of all, the Honda Civic isn’t a great car for moving. I could never fit a lot of stuff in it, so I often felt worse than useless as we were moving things between houses. Prior to this, my biggest complaint about the Civic was that I could never fit as much mulch in it as I actually needed. (And I’m going to need A LOT more mulch now!) Trips to the garden center were frustrating for this reason.
So, I needed more cargo space. A LOT more cargo space.
Weather quickly became an issue once we moved here. This area floods quite a bit. There is a lot of ponding on the roads around where we live when we get heavy rains (and we’ve had a ridiculous amount of rain this winter, it seems). The Civic sits low to the ground, so I never felt safe driving it when we get a lot of rain. I was always worried about the engine stalling out.
Then we got ice and lots of it. Our driveway became one solid, thick sheet of ice. (It’s a gravel driveway, which makes it difficult to clear — we are planning to get it paved soon.) The ice was a bit challenging for the Civic, so the need for all-wheel drive became apparent. (And again, a vehicle that’s higher off the ground because of the large chunks of hard snow/ice. I was worried about it scraping the bottom of the Civic as I backed out of the driveway.)
I began researching SUVs in January and eventually decided on the Hyundai Tucson because it has more cargo room than other SUVs in this class, and … well, look at it. It’s a sharp-looking vehicle. Every source I consulted ranked this vehicle somewhere in the top 5 of compact SUVs.
I put a deposit down on this particular Tucson in mid-February. The dealership was selling them faster than they could get them in, so I had to wait. And this wasn’t the color I really wanted. I wanted silver. But dark gray is fine, too. Color aside, this had all the features I wanted (and a dash extra … still not sure what I’m going to do with the roof rack, but I have always wanted a kayak).
Happy to have a safer, more practical vehicle for life out here in the country. As an added bonus, it’s easier for my husband to get in and out of the Tucson. He hated the Civic.
Karyn Johnson 