The queen size mattress had sat in the garage for months, just an inch or so off the sometimes-flooded floor. Despite that fact it had lived there and not been ruined, it was still unwanted; off to the dump it had to go. Picking the appropriate conveyance from our three car fleet was the easy part; the 2003 Honda Accord sedan and the 1990 Mazda Miata were out and the 2004 Honda Pilot EX-L was in.

I bought the Pilot last year after a lengthy process of pondering and research. I'm a car guy and my first choice of car would have been a Porsche 911, but that was not meant to be this time. We needed a car big enough to take road trips with the kids, and my 1995 540i 6-speed was closing in on 200k with its original clutch. Time for a change....

So what would make the most sense? A mid-size SUV or minivan certainly made sense. A minivan probably made the most sense. However, I was trading in a special BMW- my first fast car- and the thought of moving from that to a minivan was grim. Whatever I did I would need to (at least partially) assuage the sense of loss that would come from no longer owning a real drivers car like the 540i. Is there any possible way to do that? Probably not, but in an effort to do so I employed the rational lobe of my brain and decided to buy used. If I bought a used model and bargained hard I would pay less and maximize the value. Getting good value feels good! Or so the argument went. Could the satisfaction of getting a good deal and a good car compensate for the loss of rear wheel drive, a V-8 and throne-like sport seats? No, not likely, but I could bide my time and earn credits with my wife toward my next fun car. So I went off in search of a good used minivan or suv. Reviews and reliability ratings soon narrowed the choices to Honda and Toyota and my size requirements had me looking at Odysseys and Siennas in the minivan category. Pilots and Highlanders were my targets in the suv category.

Looking at used minivans is awful, especially if you have kids. Once you know the impact a toddler has on the back seat area of a car you know that there are some things you can never fully clean. In each used minivan I saw it seemed a question of when, not if, I was going to find the raisins that someone else's kids had left in there. Crevices chock full of rhino virus probably awaited my girls and it didn't seem right. The same didn't seem to be true of suv's, since they can live very different lives from minivans. Many suvs, it seems, spend their lives as daily drives for people who drive around alone most of the time. In any case, I could more easily see myself driving an suv than a minivan for all the usual reasons. The grubbiness of the used minivans was a surprise, however, and it proved helpful in narrowing down the pool of possibilities.

There isn't much difference between a Pilot and a Highlander. Reliable, comfortable and practical, both have decent mileage and are stylistically bland. My choice between the two was made when I decided on my price range. Spending between 12 and 15 thousand on either the Honda or Toyota dictated a model year of 2004 or earlier, and Highlanders didn't all have 3rd row seats until later. I secured financing from my credit union and found a 2004 Honda Certified Pilot EX-L at Greenwich Honda.

The fact that the mattress fit in the Pilot speaks to the reason it was a good choice. It's a big car but not overly so. We took it on a 2700 mile road trip to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland last June and averaged about 20mpg. This winter I put 4 snow tires on it and never had even a moment of wheel spin and definitely no drama in snow. At the dump I pulled the mattress out into the bulk waste pile and two of the rubber mats I have in the "way back" came out with it. When I picked them up they were wet, even though it hadn't been raining. It's probably best not to think about what they were wet with, but it did make me wish, for the first time since I bought the Pilot, that I had bought a pickup truck instead. One time in 10 months- not bad.....

So, is it OK not having a car that makes me smile hard? Does the satisfaction of getting a good deal and having a practical car compensate adequately for the lack of speed and authority of the 540i? More to the point, does it compensate for having a car that is the epitome of both literal and figurative compromise? It turns out that I may never know. Just a few weeks after I bought the Pilot and sold the BMW to a fellow in town my father gave me his Miata. The MX-5 had 99K and is not perfect, but it definitely does not represent compromise. It is just one thing; a sporty, fair weather ride for two people. Maybe that's my next post.