My well loved Chevy Tracker came down with a major engine problem this week which would have cost about as much as I eventually got for it on a trade in to fix. I loved my little toy truck, but few others in my family did. Still, I was very sad to come to the conclusion that at 10 years old and over 100K miles, it was time.

We searched all over the place for new cars, starting with GM first at the same dealership in Weatherford where we purchased Alissa‘s current van. Her dad is retired from GM, so that has always been our first choice of car company.. plus GM cars have been very good to us over the years. You can imagine how disappointed we were to find nothing in the price range and size we wanted that was a good fit for us.

Trying to find the rare Chevy Equinox on a lot, we drove toward Granbury. There was a Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealership along the way, but the Jeeps were over priced and the Dodge we liked was great – but fully equipped, making it really costly. Shortly after, we saw this little Kia dealership. We had seen a couple of billboards for the new Kia Soul, so we decided to stop and take a look.

I am really impressed with the cars Kia is offering these days. They had several vehicles that could have fit the bill – most notably the Sorrento – but the one I really liked (and my wife didn’t hate, which is more than I can say about the Tracker) was the Soul.

So far, I’m loving this little car. Alissa calls it an MP3 Player on wheels. That’s not far from the truth. It has a fantastic standard sound system and the radio has built in iPod controls. It has more room than the Tracker, but is about the same size sitting in the garage. I hope to get even more than 10 years out of this one.

And if you are ever looking for a Kia, look up John Torres at Van Griffith Kia, he was very good to us.