I took my 12 year old Chevy Blazer in for an oil change and tire rotation and check the heater as its not been working lately. I wouldn't care but we need to drive up to Yakima, WA at the end of March to clear out my mother-in-law's house (we finally sold it) and I suspect that it's be a bit cooler than driving around SoCal.
Anyway, the service guy called and said the rear axial bearings were leaking, the rear tries needed replacing and the heater core was totally corroded and they'd have to replace way more than I was willing to pay for. Its been a good car, but it's well over 100K miles and we've been talking able getting something that would be nicer to travel in (the Blazer was only a 2-door) and besides we had close to $2000 purchase credit earned on my wife's GM card that was about expire and I had gotten a $1000 loyalty promotion from GM which was going to expire at the end of Feb so I decided it was time to trade-up to something new.
I went to the GMC website and did one of those 'build-your-own' car searches and found something that was about 95% of what I was looking for (I had to settle for Silver instead of White and there a 'chrome' option I could have done without) and the dealer was less than 3 miles from the house. So off I went and I'm now the owner of a new 2013 GMC Trerrain 'crossover SUV':
http://www.gmc.com/terrain-small-suv.html
We got the SLT-1 model with the 2.4 liter 4-cyl (we're not going be towing anything). It has the built-in Navigator and 'Intellilink' for hands-free phone and other stuff like Sirrus/XM radio and the OnStar system (there's even an iPhone apt which will allow you to remote lock/unlock and start the car as well as check your maintenance status).
So, I'm doing my part to stimulate the economy 
And as a bonus I got to see what my actual credit score was (I hadn't bought anything in years which required a credit check so it had been awhile since I had seen a detailed report) and let's just say that it was one of highest that the dealer had seen in some time and a bit higher than I had actually expected myself.
OCU
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