RIP: Little Corolla

Now that our Corolla has officially been declared dead and gone by the insurance company, I thought I'd give a little eulogy on what had been, until a couple of weeks ago, a faithful little commuter car for Glen.  

a)  we purchased it on Ebay in 2003

b)  we drove to West Chester, Pennsylvania to pick it up

c)  we paid $6900 for it, which was significantly below blue book values for a one-year-old car

d)  it had nothing automatic and sported old fashioned window rollers, no CD player, and manual door locks, etc.

e)  we thought we were so clever when we got these personalized license plates  (4 MY 4 QTs)

f) we never updated our license plates after Ellie was born.  When questioned at why only four of our five kids were considered QT's (cuties), we would tease that one of them had outgrown their cuteness.
 
g) it had 110,000 miles or so on the odometer at the time of its demise

h) other than the obnoxious phase it went through shortly after Glen added his bike rack to the back, it's been a good and faithful car that's needed very little in the way of maintenance

i)  The estimated cost of repairing the damage inflicted in Glen's rainy, early morning  accident was over $10,000

j)  The insurance company estimated its replacement value at $6000 and sent us a check for that amount (minus our deductible)

k)  that's only $900 loss in value over 8 years.  We attribute it to the good deal we got in the first place and for how well Toyotas hold their value in our area. 

Goodbye faithful Corolla.  We will miss you and our 7 years of being car payment-less. 



(And here's the story, for those of you hadn't heard before now:   Glen had just dropped Spencer off at school after seminary and when traffic stopped suddenly in front of him, he slid on the wet pavement.  The other car (Kia Sol) only sustained minor damage to the bumper.  Other than a couple of bruises from the seat belt and wounded pride, Glen is completely fine. )


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