Now I have some time to talk about the car buying.
On Saturday we decided to head over to the Toyota dealership where we got the Rav4. They were having a big sale, the whole employee discount thing on Toyotas, plus “extra savings and low financing.” We figured we should check it out, even if we weren\u2019t planning on buying just yet.
It was awful. We got there and put our names on a list to be helped; while we waited we went out in the parking lot to check out the cars. For a large dealership their selection for small cars was pretty lousy, most of them were loaded with silly options. They had about a half dozen Prius\u2019 on the lot, so it\u2019s good to know there isn\u2019t a 6 month wait to get one, too expensive though. Eventually we found a 5-speed Corolla that was pretty basic, and an hour after we got there we were finally helped by a sales guy.
The sales guy fell into all the stereotypes of high-pressure dealership sales guys. Making comments about how great the Corolla is, and how great our current car is, asking us where we were from and digging up knowledge about those places so we would feel more comfortable and let our guard down. Michael test-drove the car, and that went well, it\u2019s not a bad car.
Then we went into the negotiations. We certainly had the advantage, we didn\u2019t need the car that day, and it was very easy to just walk away from an offer if it was lousy. As usual, the sale flier was misleading, and the deals weren\u2019t nearly as good as they claimed, at least not on small cars, I\u2019m sure they took a few grand off the gas-guzzling SUVs that they can\u2019t get off the lot otherwise. We went through and got a quote with monthly payments. Egads it was high! I don\u2019t know what percentage they were basing the quote on, but it was way too high. We left, but not before looking up the address for the Limerick Honda dealership on the Toyota dealership\u2019s computer (burn!).
It was 4pm by this time; we had wasted our day at the stupid dealership. It was hot and humid, and I wasn\u2019t much in the mood for more stressful car shopping, but since the day was ruined anyway, we figured we should check out the Honda dealership.
What was my first impression of the Honda dealership? This place is a dive. But they had a lot of cars, tons of Accords, plenty of Civics, hardly bigger vehicles. At this little dealership they had a better selection than at the big Toyota dealership! We browsed, saw a couple of the new Civic Hybrids, drooled, and in all we liked what we saw. When I came across the car we ended up buying I called Michael over and we went inside to speak with a salesperson.
We were helped by a sales-woman named Susie. She\u2019d been working at the dealership for over 8 years (not the kind of thing you see at the high-pressure places, the turn-around there is months rather than years). And she was really upfront with us. We got a quote within a matter of minutes, adjusting down payment and things to get different quotes was handled quickly and professionally. I was impressed. Even more impressed at the price. The price of the Civic was actually higher than the Corolla, but the payments were significantly lower for the same payment period. After some negotiating we were at a price we were all happy with.
It was a very pleasant experience. She told us that they “can\u2019t afford to piss people off” and that buying a car shouldn\u2019t be a tricky game, it should be fun. I was happy to hear such things from a car sales-person, especially when I see the truth in the price and experience. It was late Saturday evening by the time we left the dealership, we had to wait until Monday to sign the final papers and get all the financial stuff in order.
So what happens on Monday? The big Toyota dealership calls and leaves a message on our answering machine “Sorry for not being able to make a deal on Saturday, the response from our employee discount was much more than we expected, but if you call us back we have some great news for you!” Hah! Tricky games!
What also happened on Monday? We got to pick up our new Civic.