zOMGcar
So we were going with the intent to look, not buy.
Same story with when we went to the humane society to just look at dogs, and ended up bringing home Reo. :P
Car buying... well, you know how that goes. Actually, this went pretty well. :3
We went in to look at the Saturn wagon, since it's a year older and 6-cylinder instead of 4, but essentially the same car that we've been happy with.
What we found was a car that only had one owner, low miles, and had towing hookups on the front and a valet key. Yes, this car belonged to some old people that brought it along as their vacation car.
Naturally, being that it was towed everywhere, it had a few scratches, but Joe negotiated for some free touch-up paint to go with it. It also was missing the pull-screen in the back - which, when Joe mentioned it to the salesman he had no problems taking one out of another used wagon for sale and putting it in ours.
Initially the salesman (who was still relatively new to the game, from what we could tell; an older man though so he didn't want to "lose" to a couple of kids) wouldn't really budge on the price, and got pushy. We didn't want to pay so much when he told us our payments would be over $250 a month. Ouch! We can't do that! We negotiated a longer loan term and also a lower price and got us down to payments of $157 a month, which is still a bit higher than I would like but do-able, anyway. No, we don't want your paint touch-up plan, we don't want your tire replacement plan, we don't want your special warranties and insurances, thank you. Just the car. Eventually when we signed the contract we made sure pretty much everything had "n/a" in it. The car is "certified" which means it had basic inspections done and was found to be in good working condition; that is good enough for us and if the thing breaks we can go tell the world that Saturn of Orange Park didn't mean it when they said it was okay. :P
But anyhow, during negotiations the original salesman got flustered and frustrated and so just passed us off to another guy, who had (surprise!) no problem getting our monthly payments down where we wanted it. Then a third salesman (who was our original contact when Joe called to inquire) mentioned that since it's got the towing hookup on the front, but we probably won't use that, and it's compatible with most Saturns from '01 thru '05, we might be able to sell it for a little extra cash, especially in this area where RVing is so popular. Good point! (if not, we will have no problem ever towing the car with us if we end up renting a UHaul to move interstate some day again!)
It was a learning experience, to say the least. But some good points are: if I get approved for a line of credit through my credit union, I can pay that before our first bill in 30 days, which will help to lower the loan. The line of credit thru the credit union is easier to manage and definitely not as high on interest. Also, our loan is.. I think he called it "simple interest" or something to that effect? Whatever we pay OVER our monthly payment (heh, if we can afford it) will go directly to the principle, so it'd be a quicker payoff and less interest paid.
In all, the guys were smooth talkers, and tried hard to get us to agree to things - it took us three hours to do all this, including a short ten-minute test drive of the vehicle - but we dug in our heels, told them what we needed, and eventually we did get what we needed. One guy in particular was really helpful to us - the one who got our price down, actually lowered what we ended up paying by about $1500ish - and while it might have been an unpleasant experience, it was one we needed to go through. Better now than never, I suppose. :P
So, long story short, I've got my own car!!
It's a light silvery blue. It has the upgraded soundsystem which means it has CD/cassette as well as a subwoofer in the back. It's got a leather interior. It has seat heaters. (I know, in Florida, right? Actually it'll be nice if we travel north in the winter!) All in all, it's a really nice car, almost exactly the same as our first one. I'm glad we've got it! :3
Pictures tomorrow, maybe. ;)
Same story with when we went to the humane society to just look at dogs, and ended up bringing home Reo. :P
Car buying... well, you know how that goes. Actually, this went pretty well. :3
We went in to look at the Saturn wagon, since it's a year older and 6-cylinder instead of 4, but essentially the same car that we've been happy with.
What we found was a car that only had one owner, low miles, and had towing hookups on the front and a valet key. Yes, this car belonged to some old people that brought it along as their vacation car.
Naturally, being that it was towed everywhere, it had a few scratches, but Joe negotiated for some free touch-up paint to go with it. It also was missing the pull-screen in the back - which, when Joe mentioned it to the salesman he had no problems taking one out of another used wagon for sale and putting it in ours.
Initially the salesman (who was still relatively new to the game, from what we could tell; an older man though so he didn't want to "lose" to a couple of kids) wouldn't really budge on the price, and got pushy. We didn't want to pay so much when he told us our payments would be over $250 a month. Ouch! We can't do that! We negotiated a longer loan term and also a lower price and got us down to payments of $157 a month, which is still a bit higher than I would like but do-able, anyway. No, we don't want your paint touch-up plan, we don't want your tire replacement plan, we don't want your special warranties and insurances, thank you. Just the car. Eventually when we signed the contract we made sure pretty much everything had "n/a" in it. The car is "certified" which means it had basic inspections done and was found to be in good working condition; that is good enough for us and if the thing breaks we can go tell the world that Saturn of Orange Park didn't mean it when they said it was okay. :P
But anyhow, during negotiations the original salesman got flustered and frustrated and so just passed us off to another guy, who had (surprise!) no problem getting our monthly payments down where we wanted it. Then a third salesman (who was our original contact when Joe called to inquire) mentioned that since it's got the towing hookup on the front, but we probably won't use that, and it's compatible with most Saturns from '01 thru '05, we might be able to sell it for a little extra cash, especially in this area where RVing is so popular. Good point! (if not, we will have no problem ever towing the car with us if we end up renting a UHaul to move interstate some day again!)
It was a learning experience, to say the least. But some good points are: if I get approved for a line of credit through my credit union, I can pay that before our first bill in 30 days, which will help to lower the loan. The line of credit thru the credit union is easier to manage and definitely not as high on interest. Also, our loan is.. I think he called it "simple interest" or something to that effect? Whatever we pay OVER our monthly payment (heh, if we can afford it) will go directly to the principle, so it'd be a quicker payoff and less interest paid.
In all, the guys were smooth talkers, and tried hard to get us to agree to things - it took us three hours to do all this, including a short ten-minute test drive of the vehicle - but we dug in our heels, told them what we needed, and eventually we did get what we needed. One guy in particular was really helpful to us - the one who got our price down, actually lowered what we ended up paying by about $1500ish - and while it might have been an unpleasant experience, it was one we needed to go through. Better now than never, I suppose. :P
So, long story short, I've got my own car!!
It's a light silvery blue. It has the upgraded soundsystem which means it has CD/cassette as well as a subwoofer in the back. It's got a leather interior. It has seat heaters. (I know, in Florida, right? Actually it'll be nice if we travel north in the winter!) All in all, it's a really nice car, almost exactly the same as our first one. I'm glad we've got it! :3
Pictures tomorrow, maybe. ;)