Car buyers seem to fall into one of two camps:

— Those who believe that car shopping is time-consuming, expensive, and frustrating; and

— Those who know that car shopping is energizing, affordable, and fun.

I fall into the latter. I mean, who doesn’t love that “new car” smell? The feel of new buttons? The lack of Cheerios ground into the carpets and soda spilled in the cup holders?

Everyone in my family enjoys car shopping, and, since we put 60,000 miles per year on our two cars, we shop fairly often. You have to know what’s out there on the market, and what you want, so you don’t meet any surprises as your vehicle ages and meets its conk-out potential.

Well, everyone but my youngest daughter enjoys car shopping. Little Monkey thinks that she doesn’t like change. When it was time to replace my minivan, she wasn’t having it. She saw me checking edmunds.com, and freaked out. She saw my printouts from cargurus.com, and cried. She saw me reading kbb.com, and told me the cars on the screen were ugly.

I was sick of the minivan — my third, having borne kids across two decades and needing car seats at the same time we needed baseball bats. I wanted a nice car. A N-I-C-E car. A car like the Cadillac DeVille my parents had when I was a teen.

What kind of teenager likes a Cadillac? The kind who gets to drive a V-8 engine seated on a cloudlike leather seat with the most responsive steering wheel in existence.

I wasn’t usually allowed to drive their car. I had a Chevette. It was crap. It died. They fixed it. It was still a Chevette. They bought me a replacement — an agreement we’d had for years; straight-A grades equaled a vehicle — and gave me a new Mercury to go away to college with. The bills from fixing the Mercury’s tie rods still give me nightmares. It was a lemon, but I was too young to know it.

Still, my parents let me drive the Cadillac one night, as my father accompanied my mom in an ambulance. The Caddy was the last car in the driveway so it was the first one out. Dad gave me the keys and told me to keep up.

We sped across 40 miles of empty, open Texas highway in the pre-dawn, and all I worried about while fumbling to find the lights was keeping that ambulance in sight. Dad said we flew into the city at about 75 miles per hour — 20 miles per hour above the limit.

I hadn’t realized it. I was a decent driver, having been behind the wheel since age 11 (it was Texas, after all). The car responded — floated on air — and miles per hour were irrelevant.

My mom survived and now lives in the Midwest. My dad still takes care of her, and he still likes nice cars. And boats. And RVs. Vehicles are a Big Deal in the Midwest.

They’re a big deal in my house, too, especially now that we have a third driver who is also a tall teenager. He insisted that I buy another minivan, rather than a sedan, so that, during all trips, he could be physically separated from the Little Monkey and the Middle Child, who is prone to moodiness.

I wanted a nice car, Little Monkey wanted no new vehicle at all, Teenager wanted a fourth minivan, and Middle Child? She’s a born contractor, and she’s tiny. She wanted a huge truck.

How about an Escalade? Even my husband liked that idea, but Teenager and Middle Child argued about having a third seat versus having a truck-bed model. Escalades are expensive; it would have to be used.

Could I buy a used American car? Not after the Chevette, the Mercury, and the two Dodge minivans that died on me before I fell in love with my Toyota (built in Kentucky, so still technically somewhat American). I just couldn’t part with my hard-earned money for a used Escalade.

Middle Child has years of knee surgery behind her, and a few still to go. Those third-row trucks are too high up over the rear axle to be comfortable for a tall Teenager or a recovering Middle Child. Crud. That took out the Toyota Highlander and the Lexus SUV (also expensive, also used).

An additional strike against the two — and I really was disappointed about that Toyota-like and luxurious Lexus — was the gas mileage: 15 miles per gallon versus the 24 my bigger minivan gets. Traveling 30,000 miles per year does not bode well for low MPG: the words “gas guzzlers,” “carbon footprints,” and “environmental ruin” all circled in my brain and through my wallet.

I couldn’t let go of the idea of a different style of vehicle, though, so I headed to a decent used-car dealer in Rensselaer to drive a Toyota Sequoia — a big, honkin’ oversized truck with leather seats and room for everyone. Toyota? Check. Truck? Check. Third row? Check. Heated leather seats and a nice steering wheel? Check. Expensive? Well, it was used, but still a chunk of change.

I opened the door and prepared to get in — the leather seat was dirty. It was Dirty. Stained with dirt, with a big price tag. I sat in the driver’s seat, and thought about spending my money to buy a car that made me cringe when I opened the door, then decided not to waste anyone’s time. I turned off the car and gave the keys back to the sales lady.

The workweek came, and I sent the kids to school, then scoured the internet for a car, again. This time, I found one. It was the right price, the right miles, the right make. We bought it that day.

When we broke the news to the kids, their eyes glistened with excitement. Did we get a truck? A Lexus? A crowded luxurious sedan?

No. We bought a two-years-newer Toyota minivan with 100,000 miles fewer on it than the one we traded in. It was the same color, and the same style — the same everything.

The kids cried. Little Monkey cried because it was still a different vehicle. Middle Child cried because she’s a long way from 16 and having her own truck. Teenager fussed because he wanted the Lexus. I laughed at all of them until tears streamed down my face and they called me “mean.”

Now, it’s time to search for a third car for Teenager; he doesn’t need one, but he has straight-A grades, and I have other kids who need rides after school.
We could share it — he could drive a Volvo to school and I could run errands in it on the weekends, right? Or, maybe we could find a nice, newer Cadillac. All I know is that there aren’t enough “new car smell” chemicals to ever convince me to get another Chevette.