Sold the Jeep, On the hunt for a Westfalia! 3.26.09

Sold the Jeep, On the hunt for a Westfalia! 3.26.09

We arrived in Ventura on Monday after our stay with Michael’s mom. Our friends, Sue & Dennis let us stay with them while we were in the area, which is so incredibly nice. We’re so thankful for them! We had the Jeep up for sale on several websites, as well as listed in the local Auto Trader magazine all while checking out the local Westfalia’s for sale. One evening, we visited two Westy’s that were in our price range but for one reason or another, they weren’t exactly what we wanted. That evening, I came back to the house & was chatting with them and just wasn’t feeling well. I ended up with a version of Michael’s stomach bug but was lucky – it was only a 24 hour bug. The day I was layed up sick, Michael took the Jeep to the local Jeep dealership, where it was originally purchased and they made him an offer to buy it that he couldn’t refuse. Success! Now we had to find a replacement vehicle!

Oh…I forgot to tell you. We have had a rock chip in the Jeep’s windshield for years, ever since we bought it. On our way from Michael’s mom’s house, Michael and I was discussing that we should probably get it fixed so it won’t be a ‘ding’ against the vehicle. Maybe one hour later, we were driving on the freeway and got another one! Doh! I guess it was in the cards to get it repaired, since now we had two of them! I had heard of those places that come out & repair the dings without having to replace the windshield so I called around and found one. It turns out that our insurance covered the rock ding repair and wasn’t considered a claim! Sounds good! So we called a guy out and he started working on the newest one. Michael was down there when he started….and crack! While he was drilling out the chip, it cracked all the way up and down the windshield. CRAP! Michael came up and calmly told me this, and was silently freaking out because it would look horrible now! But he continued to let the guy do his job and we just hoped for the best. I was watching him out of the upstairs window and he was on the phone, and it looked like he was taking pictures of the windshield. Anyway, to make a long story short….Michael went back down and they guy explained that he had talked to his bosses and they were going to replace the windshield at no cost to us. WOW!! He said he did 3 things wrong…of which I completely forget except for not tell us this might happen. He said it had never happened to him and he’s still puzzled how it did it. Michael told him that if it would help, he could tell his bosses that he was a real dick and was yelling and screaming and the guy said that the whole reason that we were getting the replacement was because he didn’t do that. We were pretty lucky on that! So the next day, Safelite Auto Glass came out & replaced the windshield at no cost. Amazing…

We turned the Jeep into the Jeep dealership and had them drop us off at a car rental company where we picked up a rental car for the week. We continued to scour the internet, trade magazines, & anything else we could find for vehicles in our price range. We had about 10 vehicles to look at over the weekend and took off Saturday morning to go down to LA and San Diego if they didn’t all work out. We were looking at any kind of Class B RV or Westfalia.

On the hunt!
Rene & Michael