Shit is getting crazy. Sorry I’ve been away again, but there’s a lot going on. Last week we bought a car, for instance. We can’t afford it, but bought it anyway. It’s the American way!
As is the tradition, it wasn’t an easy process. Twice we hemmed and hawed for 24 hours, and both times the car we had in our sites was sold out from under us. I’m not the type to make instant decisions on such a large purchase, and need to ruminate about it for a day or two. But we kept getting burned.
The sales guy was pretty aggressive, too. At one point I felt like I was being blatantly manipulated (I can handle subtle manipulation, but not blatant), and decided to wash my hands of the whole thing. But we still needed a third car, and they had the best lineup of quality pre-owned vehicles. So, we went back one more time.
There are three people in our family who drive now, and we all work at radically different times, and locations. It was a constant juggling act, trying to work out the logistics. So, we’ve been talking about a third car for many months. But I HATED the thought of jumping back into monthly payments. We’ve had a year and a half free of that crap, and it’s been nice.
We considered buying the boy something in the $4000 range (he had a little money to contribute). But those junkers made me nervous. We went and looked at several of them, and they smelled like trouble to me. I had a feeling they’d nickel and dime us to hell.
So, we changed our strategy, and decided to look for a newer and more reliable commuter car for me. Just something small, that gets good gas mileage. All wheel drive would be a bonus, since I drive in snow way too much. I’d drive the new car, and let the boy use the Camry. If we played our cards right, we thought we could get something decent in the $12,000 range.
And we ended up with a 2012 Suzuki SX4, exactly like the one below. It’s dark gray, with black interior, and only 7200 miles on the odometer. It’s pristine, like new, and we got a semi-decent deal on it. It was more than $12K, though.
It has tons of fancy-pants add-ons, like heated mirrors, heated seats, and all that stuff. And I can finally play The Big iPod in my car, which kicks ass. Plus, it’s all wheel drive. The thing checked all our boxes, so we pulled the trigger on it, without the 24 hour rumination period. It felt unnatural, and INSANE, but we did it.
Somehow, that ordeal dominated the past week. I was losing it, man… Every time they sold “my” car to someone else, it killed me. Especially the second one. And the manipulation pissed me off, and caused me to rant at length in our dining room, kitchen, and front yard.
The actual buying experience wasn’t very good, either. The salesman was the most disorganized sumbitch I’ve ever encountered. He couldn’t stay on task, and his desk was a disgrace. He’d start doing something, quit in the middle, and start something new. He was up and down, bouncing all over the place. I was about to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to scream, “Sit your scrawny ass down, organize that abortion of a desk, and get us out of here, ya freak!”
At one point he had the name of our street listed as our last name on the paperwork, and the whole thing was excruciating. The guy works exactly the opposite way I do. I have to complete a task, before I move on to the next one. I can’t do six things at once, it makes me crazy. But we finally made it through, and the car problem — which had been weighing heavily on us — is solved.
I’ll tell you guys about the other stuff that’s happening, as soon as possible. One is gonna be fun, so stay tuned.
As for a Question, I’d like to read your car-buying horror stories. I wouldn’t put this one in that category, exactly; it was just a little annoying. But I’ve walked out of places in the past, had screaming matches with salesmen, etc. What about you? Do you have any remarkable car-buying tales?
Also, what’s the most recent crazy-ass purchase you made on a whim? Ya got anything on that? Use the comments link below.
And I promise to do better with the updates this week. I’m WAAAY off track. I’ll do better.
See you guys again tomorrow.
Now playing in the bunker
Use the Surf Report’s webhost: HostGator!
Yep, uh-huh.
I’ve never had a car buying horror story. I’ve only ever bought two of them.
The first one was a company vehicle that only I ever used. When the company was sold neither the new nor old company owners wanted the truck. It had less than 30000 miles on it. The old company owner asked me if I wanted it. I said yes. He asked me to give him all the cash I had on hand and the truck was mine. I think it cost me $20 and some change.
The other vehicle I bought, the current truck, was just as easy, only more expensive. It was brand new, only a year old model-wise. It was listed for about $19,200. I walked up to the first sales person I saw and said, “I’ll give you 18K for that truck”. He said, “Deal.”
Don’t you just love it when you DON’T have much cash on you? That worked out well for you.
I was 17, that may have been the most cash I ever had on me up to that point.
Luckily, all my car buying stories are lame, as in no problems.
Good to see you’re not a smear in a parking lot somewhere, Jeff. Looking forward to the good news.
Car-wise I’ve only got one tale. We had a plain Cherokee Sport that needed some work, and while we waited a six-month-old Grand Cherokee caught our eyes. Red flags were ignored: The salesman said it was a fleet car, which we took to mean used by Jeep but probably meant a rental. It was a V8 with full-time AWD (the Sport was an inline 6 with variable AWD), thus plenty thirsty. Also when we took the test drive the salesman went with us and told us where to go – no highway driving, just around the neighborhood. Still it was quiet and roomy and QUIET compared to the Sport, so we likely paid way too much in order to buy buy buy that very night.
On the plus side it’s been really reliable and other than drinking gas like crazy it’s been a good car. Next time I’m going to review and check and plan and wait just like Jeff, and will likely end up with a lemon, ’cause that’s how things go.
I’ll tell you guys about the other stuff that’s happening, as soon as possible. One is gonna be fun, so stay tuned.
Am I the only one that got that tingle in his taint that precedes an Eninen update?!?!?!
Not until August, I’m afraid.
Not really a horror story, but incredibly strange for a car dealership: we were at a Toyota lot, ready to buy, financing all lined up, walked onto the lot and nobody came out to greet us. My wife and I must have wandered around the lot for about twenty minutes and not a soul came out to see what we wanted. We could see sales people around, but they never approached us–like we just escaped from a leper colony or something, so we took off to another dealership that wanted our money!
Now, throw some “Blizzaks” under that Suzuki, and you’ll have yourself one bodacious car!
I only buy stick shifts. This rules out a lot of cars (and all but 1 minivan, ha!) but many cars *are* available with a stick, just no dealers ever have them, not in my boring-car end of the market, anyway. By now I’m used to the “you want a what?!” when I try to buy new cars. One of my current cars was transferred/dealer swapped over from a dealer in Kenya I think, given the amount the salesman moaned about it.
What I *really* want is a stick shift diesel E-Class, aka a German taxicab, but Mercedes Benz USA won’t sell me such a pauper’s machine, only E-Classes with handbag holders and such 🙁
Only stick shifts for me, too. Actually I did have an automatic for about a year, during the 1980s. The other 10 cars I’ve had were manual shift.
And there are lots of cars like that Turkish Taxi that are sold with stick shifts in other countries, but not in the US.
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Nice ride, Jeff.
My horror experience involves a dealership that was owned by a man that eventually went to prison for fraud, or some shit, so I am sure my experience isn’t the only one involving that particular dealer.
I was in college and didn’t need a car, I just wanted a car. I had decent credit and didn’t owe that much on my trade but I traded a car with a salvage title (it was a great car, it had been wrecked by the previous owner and expertly repaired.. good as new). I traded for a car in the 12k range and the dealer goosed the price way up and told me the bank would not finance it without a $1,500 down payment due to my credit. I cried foul and left the dealership.
It nagged me for a while and eventually, the angst for a new car overwhelmed me and I agreed to the deal thinking that I wouldn’t find a better deal if my credit was “that bad”.
A short time later I was discussing refinancing with another bank and they told me my credit was better than “that bad”, in fact, it was more than good enough to finance that car with 0 down. He looked at my bill of sale and realize that the dealership had marked up the cost of the new car by at least $2,200. I made the mistake of negotiating on payment instead of price. Sure, I got the car for the payment I wanted, I just didn’t get any trade allowance and payed about 2K over what the car was worth.
I was young and dumb and never made that mistake again.
Not a horror story, but weird.
We are American, thus used to being swooped down upon from every direction like vultures on a rotting carcass the moment we step onto a car lot. Not so in Italy.
We had to LOOK for a salesperson, who seemed absolutely bored with the fact that he may have to make a sale. When you say “I need to think about it” they say “Okay” turn around and walk away. The first time this happened, my husband and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. I’m sure the guy thought we were insane. This, however, is the norm. Talk about low-pressure sales tactics. It’s kind of refreshing, really.
Not on topic but read that The Replacements are doing 3 live shows this summer. Probably old news to Jeff.
We bought a new minivan last year (don’t judge, it is awesome) and spent quite a bit of time researching and deciding which one was the best fit for us. In April of 2012 we started test driving some to rule out the ones we didn’t like. When we went to dealerships and they started in on the song and dance we told them that we were just looking and were at least 6 months away from purchasing. Most places were great about it. We test drove vans and made our pro/con list. The Toyota and VW place made copies of our license, handed us the keys and said “have fun!”.
Then we went to the Honda lot. The salesman immediately made a crack about my son’s University of Illinois T-shirt: he was 3 at the time. We are Illini fans living in MO. We are used to it, but he would not stop. It was annoying. We were looking at the van, folding down seats, etc. The kids (3 and 8) wanted to get in the back row. I was folding down the seats for them and the salesman told them to just stand on the seats and climb over. I don’t like my kids standing on the seats in my car. When I told them not to, he told them to not listen to me and that I wasn’t fun.
When we test drove he went with us. Shortly after pulling out of the lot he asked what it would take for us to drive the van home tonight. My husband laughed and said we were not buying today. The sleazy salesman kept asking.
We got back to the dealership and he wanted to “run the numbers” with us. We stupidly said sure. He also asked for our keys so his trade in guy could look at our trade. He got very aggressive and pushy about trying to sell the van that day. My husband finally said we’d give him our trade (7 year old Santa Fe) and $10,000. He acted all offended and said we were insulting him. My husband laughed and said “I told you were are not buying today. That’s what it would take for us to buy the van today”. We got up to leave and our vehicle was gone. They took it on a test drive without telling us.
Once we had our keys back the salesman and his manager blocked the door so we could not leave. They kept asking what it would take to make the sale today, etc. I was ready to punch them.
We did end up buying the Honda van ,from another dealership. It was easy. I emailed the lady, we test drove and bought that day at a price we wanted.
We bought a Suzuki Grand Vitara a year ago that my wife drives and loves the car. It’s got a lot more pick up than the Jeep Patriot she used to drive. It’s loaded too. Then, Suzuki up and filed Chapter 7 last fall, so I suppose the value of the vehicle immediately dropped to one half of what we owe on it. It’s got a great warranty on it and the dealership still has the service contracts for another 7 years, so I think we’re good.
Don’t worry, Bill. Other than routine maintenance. you probably won’t need anything done. My Suzuki just turned over 166,000 miles with very little work done on it. One piece replaced free under warranty early on, and the AC needed service once. I love this car!
A few years back we were looking to buy a new car and the one dealership ran our credit about 25 times without telling us. They kept trying to push us into crappy used cars that we were not interested in. We ended up going somewhere else for our car but for about a year we kept getting letters in the mail from every bank/lender you can think of. We were pissed.
This past fall, we wanted a second car and I found a great like new car and the dealership promised me that they would pay the first months payment. Well I even brought in the payment slip to the dealership personally, gave it to the manager so he can make the payment. Well a month later I got tons of calls from the bank saying my payment was never received. They never made the payment! I called them up and flipped out and they eventually paid it.
The whole car buying experience is nothing but stress and I hate it.
Car dealers are the lowest form of scum on the planet. It’s true. They evolved from a particular pod of sea apes that was considered the lowest form of scum by all of the other pods of sea apes. That’s right: MERMAIDS!
My younger sister was buying her first brand new car – a Mustang – and she went to one dealership with her “trade in” – I forget what it was – a Chevy or something – not a bad car but the arrogant prick of a salesman told her “You know and I know, you aren’t going to get ANYTHING for that car.” She gave him “THE LOOK” and said “Well, thanks for your time. Oh and you just lost the sale.” The look on that asshole’s face was priceless.
Jeff, my husband has a Suzuki – not the same model – he has the now defunct X7 but it’s a nice ride. Good luck with the new wheels!
When they start in on their old song and dance sales pitch, I’ll stop them and ask them how many times they’ve been married and/or divorced. You usually get the 3/4/5 times answer. Imagine that?
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters….
Since I work as an F & I manager for a Chevrolet dealer, I’m on the opposite end of the horror spectrum. Dealing with the ignorant, imbeciles and assholes. It’s pretty much a daily occurrence.
One nice thing about working at a dealership though… I made myself one helluva deal on a 2013 Chevy Malibu lease. 3 year, 10,000 miles a year, and after the employee discount and incentives, with no money down, my monthly payment is $243 a month.
And JK, there is a saying in the car business. “The car today you are thinking about buying tomorrow may be the car someone yesterday thought about buying today”.
…I know that doesn’t make you feel better about having a car sold out from under you, but unfortunately, it happens more often than you would think.
No car buying horror stories.Bought everything used, and two off a dealer lot without issue or runaround.
Just looking for a particular used car though, that amounts to running the gauntlet. Some lots need some serious reeducation.
Alex.
Where I live most buyers get the manufacturers employee discount.
The price is set at the factory and the dealer just hands you the invoice with that price shown clearly. There is no negotiation ever.
You just go in, tell them what you want and go away with your car. It even works with some of the used cars. Those are typically cars driven by executives for a few months and then sold to employees or their families. Usually they’re a pretty good deal.
With GM, that’s the “preferred pricing”. We sell a lot of cars that way. Basically the ‘no dicker sticker’.
My only car-buying horror story is a pretty standard one. It goes, “wife ruins couple’s credit; husband then buys used car for full MSRP at 25% APR.” But that was long ago, and while the wench is not dead, she does live in another country now in addition to being the ex.
Other than that, relatively painless for the most part. I think the key is that when you walk into that dealership, you have to be prepared to walk right back out. And it doesn’t hurt if the scalesman knows that up front.
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One time I bought a car, and found out later it was actually a used microwave on top of a scooter. Sadly it neither served as a transportation device or a way to cook burnt popcorn.
I’ve made mistakes in the past, but my most recent car buying experience was spectacular. I wanted to make a flat trade from a slightly older diesel truck to a newer Jeep. The dealership didn’t want to make the trade. While I was there a guy came in upon seeing my truck and asked a salesmen if it was for sale. I overheard this and approached the guy after I turned down the dealer. He was willing to pay cash for the truck for more than the Jeep I wanted. Ended up that I got the Jeep and 4k in my pocket and the dealer lost out.
Since you are an author, I would have gone with “sights” not “sites’.
Sorry to be a douche but I can’t help it.
Our story isn’t horrific, rather it’s a funny experience we had buying a new car for my wife. We test drove a few cars and went to look at a Nissan Pathfinder. The saleslady was about 4’10” and had a mouth like a boathorn.
She’s telling us this story about how her husband’s twin brother had been in a serious accident and needed a lot of care. She goes on to tell us how their whangers, are not the same size. Way too much information.
We pulled into a gas station so that she could buy cigarettes. She had no money on her, and she comes back to the car, and says, “all you gotta do is show some tit to get free stuff.”
We bought the car.
Good God man. Was it Roseanne Barr?
Worst ever was one I wasn’t even involved in.. My wife asked, “Can we send my (widowed) Mother some money for a down payment on a car? “Sure,” thought I, think $1000 would be adequate. My says, okay, I’m sending her $5000.
So, I told her her that with the 5 grand apiece that her three brothers were kicking in, she could buy a new car. Said she, “You know that none of them have that kind of money!”
So, one brother has a “friend” at the car dealership that will get her a “special” deal on a car. I had been doing research on it, and found some really nice, affordable new cars that would have fit her nicely. 0.0% financing, long warranty period.
So, brother and his salesman “friend” put her into a 7 year old semi high mileage Honda CRX for $13500 with 5.9% financing.
She could have got a new one for $20,000 at 0.9%., with a three year warranty.
I was pissed!!!! I’m fronting 5 grand, and I don’t get a say in the matter?
BTW, thanks for the comments section….it is a really good place to vent, hear hilarious stories and comments, and generally keeps me from putting a .357 Magnum in my mouth and pulling the trigger!
OKAY EVERYONE! Since today’s topic is used cars, go to your video store, or use Netflix and see the movie “Used Cars.” Great one liners and scenes, stars Kurt Russell, Jack Warden in dual roles as the good hearted Luke Fuchs, and his evil twin brother used car dealer, Roy L. Fuchs. To those of you who have seen it, “Test drive for Toby!”
One of my favorite comedies of all time. The dude that wouldn’t drive a red car was hilarious !!
“all I saw was a van drive up, and all these funny looking little guys with towels on their heads shouting “Ayatollah, Ayatollah.”
“I don’t know officer, I think it was Iranian students out to undermine our American way of life.”
I went out last June on a whim and traded in my old BMW Sedan for a new BMW Convertible. I felt very happy with my purchase until 3 weeks later a company my firm had purchased (exotic car leasing company) ended up having an Aston Martin come back because the lessee couldn’t make the balloon payment (which was half of what the car was worth). Long story short… I flew out to California to pick up a rare Aston Martin that I bought by paying a $50k balloon payment for a $100k car that is still sitting in driveway next to a year old BMW that to this day only has 3k miles on it.