Car shopping (mis)adventures
Buying a new car is hell. No other way to put it. It was an excruciating process to put it lightly.
To start with let me say that I love my blue Mazda3. It's hard to explain. I guess that the best analogy would be to say that I loved it like a dog or whatever pet you hold affection for. It had a great engine(2.3L), it had lots of room to store stuff, and it looked cool. On top of that the driving experience was wonderful, it handled like a rally car, it had great visibility and also featured a nice stereo. I have many good memories associated with that car and so I was just as sad to get rid of it as I would have been to bury a dog. You may think I'm exaturating but you can just ask Candice, she will tell you how hard it was for me to give it up.
So why did I get a new car if I loved the Mazda so much? Well if it was a pet, then it was definitely one that "bit the hand that fed it". There were so many problems with it that it had to be put down. Starting at the beginning of 2009 the suspension started acting up and strange noises started coming from the front end and it started handling very poorly, especially when going around sharp curves or over bumps. Then starting last summer was a string of problems: bent rim, dead battery(really dead, not jumpable. To make matters worse: it died on a camping trip), wheel bearing replacement, bad thermostat, new temp sensor, transmission flush, and new front tires. As you can imagine that turned out to be quite a lot of money and through it all the suspension never seemed right. So I took it in for a string of mechanic visits starting in December and stretching all the way in to Feburary. My instructions were to fix the knocking noise that happened whenever I went over a bump(really annoying, every bump made me wince) and the grinding noise that happened when I turned right at slow speeds. These problems absolutely flumoxed the mechanic, actually mechanics(plural) since he brought in Mazda experts to look at it. They replaced the shocks, the struts, shock mounts, several things I can't pronounce and the lower control arm. In the end none of that fixed the noises and he had to "give up" as he put it, I have never seen a man so frustrated and embarrassed about a car.
So I decided to take the car to the dealer and see if he could shed any light on it. I was reluctant since it's about $100 just to walk in the door. That's when the shit started to hit the fan.
Candice is living with me and she was FINALLY able to get a job. Unfortunately her office is located on the north side of the beltway while my apartment is on the south side. The week after my mechanic "gave up" on the Mazda two things happened: 1)Her car started giving her trouble then died completely, and 2)The transmission on the Mazda started to go. The Mazda was still drivable....but it's scary knowing that at any time the transmission could die. She would drop me off super early to work and would pick me up after she was done. So we were in the precarious position, only about a half a car between the two of us. It was clear to me that the Mazda wasn't worth pouring even more money in to and that I needed to get a new car as soon as possible.
But I didn't know what kind of car I wanted. I wanted the Mazda to work, so I hadn't even looked at cars or car magazines for years. So I sat down and did some soul searching because I wanted a car that I would love as much as I did the Mazda, especially if I'm going to be paying for it for the next 5 years. I came to the conclusion that I wanted something that was fun to drive: big engine and sports car suspension. I absolutely didn't want to be stuck with a car I didn't like because of SCA needs or gas mileage concerns. The SCA is awesome but it's a hobby for the weekend thing, and my commute is almost nothing so gas mileage isn't a day-to-day concern. So I wanted a sport coupe. I even talked to a fellow SCA'dian about doing events in a coupe with almost zero back seat.
So with that criteria I began my search. I looked at 3 main cars. First was the 350Z, I've liked the Z cars since I was a kid. Second was the Chrysler Crossfire, I loved the look and they were relatively inexpensive. And last but not least was the Mustang, I love love love the retro look of the post 2007's. My dream car is the new Camaro but at $24k it was out of my price range(although I will definitely be looking when the after market ones start appearing). I found a nice 350Z to test drive as soon as I could(complicated since Candice and I were sharing). I really liked the way it looked but it had two major drawbacks. First was the seat, it squeezed my butt. Now I don't have a big butt, at least I don't think I do, but I drove it for about 15min and it was super uncomfortable even after I got out of it. Second drawback was that it is an RPM queen, so to speak. The thing really wouldn't move unless it was over 35000rpm, the sports car "growl" was nice but going from 0-25 at a normal pace sounded like the green flag at Daytona. No thank you, I wanted a car that would cruise at low speeds and then jump when I dropped the hammer.
The next day was Saturday so I wanted to get as much car shopping done as possible since Gulf Wars was looming. I had it planned so that I would drive up to Maryland and drive a Mustang, a Crossfire and and older Mercedes Benz SLK that was at the same dealership as the Crossfire. But I didn't get any farther than the Mustang(2007 with 40k miles) dealership because I fell in love with that car. Probably a lot quicker than I should have. But I couldn't help it, the interior felt a lot like my Mazda with the way it sat and where all the controls were, it had the sports car engine but it also had the low end torque that let it cruise in town. The salesman gave me a great deal on it, but I told him I wanted to test drive a few other cars first, he came back with the offer to let me take the car home for the weekend and I could bring it back if I didn't like it. It thought this was odd, but I have since learned that this is pretty common practice with used cars, who knew. So I said great, lets do it. It took forever to get all the paperwork done which sucked because that meant that the other dealership was closed. But I had a Mustang and I was going to enjoy driving it home. On the beltway I noticed a little wobbling in the front tires, no big deal, they just needed to be balanced.
But I started to miss my Mazda. It was weird. Candice figured it out before I said anything and reminded me that I could take it back on Monday if I really didn't like it. Sunday morning we decided to take a drive, to put it through it's paces. As we were about to get in the car I noticed a smell, a very sweet smell. At first I thought it was the "new car spray" that I could tell was all over the dashboard area. But I smelled it stronger outside the car. So I looked underneath, lo and behold there was a pool of fluid!!! Damn was I mad. I moved the car and it was red fluid, not oil....transmission fluid. Are you kidding me? I was so sick of stuff going wrong with cars, I was livid. This car was definitely going back. On Monday I took the car back and demanded my Mazda back, as anticipated it was like pulling teeth. Fucking bullshit!! Grrrr! Still makes me mad thinking about it.
So I was back to square one and also I was missing a day of work. So I took the opportunity to go drive an Eclipse. It handled well but it was a 4Cyl. Then I went to the Benz dealership to drive the Crossfire and the SLK. I had done some research on the SLK and was really liking what I read. This one was a 2001 so I was a little weary of it. Turns out this thing was in pristine condition, only 40k miles on it, was literally garage kept by two old people who only got rid of it because they had hip replacement surgery and couldn't get in and out of it anymore. It sounds too good to be true, right? Well I drove it, and it was awesome. It drove smoothly in town but it was clearly a V6 with plenty of power when you dropped the hammer. It had a great suspension and stuck to corners like glue. Also it was yellow, a convertable, and got almost the same gas mileage as the Mazda. I was hooked. Again. I also drove the Crossfire which was very similar but it had 18in wheels on it and so I was feeling every bump in the road. So I decided to go for the Mercedes Benz SLK320. But that's a lot easier said than done.
To start with the banks were very hesitant to finance a car that is 9 years old. Add on to that my lack of credit history and it was rejection city. I don't have bad credit, my score is in the low 700's, but I don't buy a lot of things on credit at all, so I'm basically an unknown quantity to them. So I decided to try to get a loan from Wells Fargo/Wachovia. I filled out the application and then called to talk to a loan rep. Again they rejected me but said maybe they would do it if I had a co-signer with good credit. So I decided to ask my Dad. This is a little humbling since I'm almost 30, but he was more than happy to be a co-signer and he was excited about the car and said that a Benz at that price with that mileage on it should be jumped on quickly. So I got all of his info and submitted his name on to the application. What followed was 2 days of faxing documents, playing middle man between the bank and the dealership and talking to a person who worked a weird shift in the central time zone. Headaches galore!! The worst thing was that they never told me what the next step in the process would be, it was always a surprise that I had to scramble to take car of. In the end they had everything they needed and the loan was greenlit.
But the problems were just starting. In order to complete the loan process my father and I had to appear, in person, with the car, at a Wells Fargo loan store(only 4 in Virginia), during weekday business hours. At this point I almost gave up, because my father lives 4 hours away in Christiansburg VA. But the loan officer said that he would talk to the dealership and get them to take the car to a store in Maryland and I would have to go and visit a different office with my Father. That meant I had to get down to Roanoke on a weekday, either Friday or Monday. If I chose Monday it would be cutting in to Gulf Wars(post on that later) but doing it Friday would mean taking even MORE time off from work. In the end Friday was the only one that would work. My boss agreed to let me take the extra time if I came in and worked on Saturday before I left. So I then had to rent a car to drive to Roanoke, I did not trust the Mazda to make it obviously. So I got to work early, left and drove the 3.5ish hours to Roanoke. Sat in the office, signed papers, took my Dad out to eat and then drove back. When I got back I had to go to Silver Spring to pick up Candice and then finally got home. The next morning I had to get up early and go to the dealership with the certified check.
When I got to the dealership, things almost went sideways again. When I arrived, the first thing they did was ask where Robert(my Dad) was. And then they said that they would have to mail him all of the papers to sign and he would have to mail them back after being notarized. Then when I handed them the check they looked at it and said that Robert had to be there to sign it in front of them since his name was also on it. I almost had a melt-down right there in the office. I had already bent over so far backwards that I felt like this guy:
But thankfully one of the nicer managers decided it was ok to send the check in the packet of paperwork for my Dad to sign. So finally after all of the bullshit, crammed in to a very short amount of time, I drove away with a sweet new(to me) yellow convertable. But it was very bittersweet since I drove it straight to my office to work for 4 hours and then the next day I left town for a week.
So that's the saga of the new car and the source of much stress and literally a week-long headache for me. But now I have a shiny new car and it runs like a dream(knock on wood!).
To start with let me say that I love my blue Mazda3. It's hard to explain. I guess that the best analogy would be to say that I loved it like a dog or whatever pet you hold affection for. It had a great engine(2.3L), it had lots of room to store stuff, and it looked cool. On top of that the driving experience was wonderful, it handled like a rally car, it had great visibility and also featured a nice stereo. I have many good memories associated with that car and so I was just as sad to get rid of it as I would have been to bury a dog. You may think I'm exaturating but you can just ask Candice, she will tell you how hard it was for me to give it up.
So why did I get a new car if I loved the Mazda so much? Well if it was a pet, then it was definitely one that "bit the hand that fed it". There were so many problems with it that it had to be put down. Starting at the beginning of 2009 the suspension started acting up and strange noises started coming from the front end and it started handling very poorly, especially when going around sharp curves or over bumps. Then starting last summer was a string of problems: bent rim, dead battery(really dead, not jumpable. To make matters worse: it died on a camping trip), wheel bearing replacement, bad thermostat, new temp sensor, transmission flush, and new front tires. As you can imagine that turned out to be quite a lot of money and through it all the suspension never seemed right. So I took it in for a string of mechanic visits starting in December and stretching all the way in to Feburary. My instructions were to fix the knocking noise that happened whenever I went over a bump(really annoying, every bump made me wince) and the grinding noise that happened when I turned right at slow speeds. These problems absolutely flumoxed the mechanic, actually mechanics(plural) since he brought in Mazda experts to look at it. They replaced the shocks, the struts, shock mounts, several things I can't pronounce and the lower control arm. In the end none of that fixed the noises and he had to "give up" as he put it, I have never seen a man so frustrated and embarrassed about a car.
So I decided to take the car to the dealer and see if he could shed any light on it. I was reluctant since it's about $100 just to walk in the door. That's when the shit started to hit the fan.
Candice is living with me and she was FINALLY able to get a job. Unfortunately her office is located on the north side of the beltway while my apartment is on the south side. The week after my mechanic "gave up" on the Mazda two things happened: 1)Her car started giving her trouble then died completely, and 2)The transmission on the Mazda started to go. The Mazda was still drivable....but it's scary knowing that at any time the transmission could die. She would drop me off super early to work and would pick me up after she was done. So we were in the precarious position, only about a half a car between the two of us. It was clear to me that the Mazda wasn't worth pouring even more money in to and that I needed to get a new car as soon as possible.
But I didn't know what kind of car I wanted. I wanted the Mazda to work, so I hadn't even looked at cars or car magazines for years. So I sat down and did some soul searching because I wanted a car that I would love as much as I did the Mazda, especially if I'm going to be paying for it for the next 5 years. I came to the conclusion that I wanted something that was fun to drive: big engine and sports car suspension. I absolutely didn't want to be stuck with a car I didn't like because of SCA needs or gas mileage concerns. The SCA is awesome but it's a hobby for the weekend thing, and my commute is almost nothing so gas mileage isn't a day-to-day concern. So I wanted a sport coupe. I even talked to a fellow SCA'dian about doing events in a coupe with almost zero back seat.
So with that criteria I began my search. I looked at 3 main cars. First was the 350Z, I've liked the Z cars since I was a kid. Second was the Chrysler Crossfire, I loved the look and they were relatively inexpensive. And last but not least was the Mustang, I love love love the retro look of the post 2007's. My dream car is the new Camaro but at $24k it was out of my price range(although I will definitely be looking when the after market ones start appearing). I found a nice 350Z to test drive as soon as I could(complicated since Candice and I were sharing). I really liked the way it looked but it had two major drawbacks. First was the seat, it squeezed my butt. Now I don't have a big butt, at least I don't think I do, but I drove it for about 15min and it was super uncomfortable even after I got out of it. Second drawback was that it is an RPM queen, so to speak. The thing really wouldn't move unless it was over 35000rpm, the sports car "growl" was nice but going from 0-25 at a normal pace sounded like the green flag at Daytona. No thank you, I wanted a car that would cruise at low speeds and then jump when I dropped the hammer.
The next day was Saturday so I wanted to get as much car shopping done as possible since Gulf Wars was looming. I had it planned so that I would drive up to Maryland and drive a Mustang, a Crossfire and and older Mercedes Benz SLK that was at the same dealership as the Crossfire. But I didn't get any farther than the Mustang(2007 with 40k miles) dealership because I fell in love with that car. Probably a lot quicker than I should have. But I couldn't help it, the interior felt a lot like my Mazda with the way it sat and where all the controls were, it had the sports car engine but it also had the low end torque that let it cruise in town. The salesman gave me a great deal on it, but I told him I wanted to test drive a few other cars first, he came back with the offer to let me take the car home for the weekend and I could bring it back if I didn't like it. It thought this was odd, but I have since learned that this is pretty common practice with used cars, who knew. So I said great, lets do it. It took forever to get all the paperwork done which sucked because that meant that the other dealership was closed. But I had a Mustang and I was going to enjoy driving it home. On the beltway I noticed a little wobbling in the front tires, no big deal, they just needed to be balanced.
But I started to miss my Mazda. It was weird. Candice figured it out before I said anything and reminded me that I could take it back on Monday if I really didn't like it. Sunday morning we decided to take a drive, to put it through it's paces. As we were about to get in the car I noticed a smell, a very sweet smell. At first I thought it was the "new car spray" that I could tell was all over the dashboard area. But I smelled it stronger outside the car. So I looked underneath, lo and behold there was a pool of fluid!!! Damn was I mad. I moved the car and it was red fluid, not oil....transmission fluid. Are you kidding me? I was so sick of stuff going wrong with cars, I was livid. This car was definitely going back. On Monday I took the car back and demanded my Mazda back, as anticipated it was like pulling teeth. Fucking bullshit!! Grrrr! Still makes me mad thinking about it.
So I was back to square one and also I was missing a day of work. So I took the opportunity to go drive an Eclipse. It handled well but it was a 4Cyl. Then I went to the Benz dealership to drive the Crossfire and the SLK. I had done some research on the SLK and was really liking what I read. This one was a 2001 so I was a little weary of it. Turns out this thing was in pristine condition, only 40k miles on it, was literally garage kept by two old people who only got rid of it because they had hip replacement surgery and couldn't get in and out of it anymore. It sounds too good to be true, right? Well I drove it, and it was awesome. It drove smoothly in town but it was clearly a V6 with plenty of power when you dropped the hammer. It had a great suspension and stuck to corners like glue. Also it was yellow, a convertable, and got almost the same gas mileage as the Mazda. I was hooked. Again. I also drove the Crossfire which was very similar but it had 18in wheels on it and so I was feeling every bump in the road. So I decided to go for the Mercedes Benz SLK320. But that's a lot easier said than done.
To start with the banks were very hesitant to finance a car that is 9 years old. Add on to that my lack of credit history and it was rejection city. I don't have bad credit, my score is in the low 700's, but I don't buy a lot of things on credit at all, so I'm basically an unknown quantity to them. So I decided to try to get a loan from Wells Fargo/Wachovia. I filled out the application and then called to talk to a loan rep. Again they rejected me but said maybe they would do it if I had a co-signer with good credit. So I decided to ask my Dad. This is a little humbling since I'm almost 30, but he was more than happy to be a co-signer and he was excited about the car and said that a Benz at that price with that mileage on it should be jumped on quickly. So I got all of his info and submitted his name on to the application. What followed was 2 days of faxing documents, playing middle man between the bank and the dealership and talking to a person who worked a weird shift in the central time zone. Headaches galore!! The worst thing was that they never told me what the next step in the process would be, it was always a surprise that I had to scramble to take car of. In the end they had everything they needed and the loan was greenlit.
But the problems were just starting. In order to complete the loan process my father and I had to appear, in person, with the car, at a Wells Fargo loan store(only 4 in Virginia), during weekday business hours. At this point I almost gave up, because my father lives 4 hours away in Christiansburg VA. But the loan officer said that he would talk to the dealership and get them to take the car to a store in Maryland and I would have to go and visit a different office with my Father. That meant I had to get down to Roanoke on a weekday, either Friday or Monday. If I chose Monday it would be cutting in to Gulf Wars(post on that later) but doing it Friday would mean taking even MORE time off from work. In the end Friday was the only one that would work. My boss agreed to let me take the extra time if I came in and worked on Saturday before I left. So I then had to rent a car to drive to Roanoke, I did not trust the Mazda to make it obviously. So I got to work early, left and drove the 3.5ish hours to Roanoke. Sat in the office, signed papers, took my Dad out to eat and then drove back. When I got back I had to go to Silver Spring to pick up Candice and then finally got home. The next morning I had to get up early and go to the dealership with the certified check.
When I got to the dealership, things almost went sideways again. When I arrived, the first thing they did was ask where Robert(my Dad) was. And then they said that they would have to mail him all of the papers to sign and he would have to mail them back after being notarized. Then when I handed them the check they looked at it and said that Robert had to be there to sign it in front of them since his name was also on it. I almost had a melt-down right there in the office. I had already bent over so far backwards that I felt like this guy:
But thankfully one of the nicer managers decided it was ok to send the check in the packet of paperwork for my Dad to sign. So finally after all of the bullshit, crammed in to a very short amount of time, I drove away with a sweet new(to me) yellow convertable. But it was very bittersweet since I drove it straight to my office to work for 4 hours and then the next day I left town for a week.
So that's the saga of the new car and the source of much stress and literally a week-long headache for me. But now I have a shiny new car and it runs like a dream(knock on wood!).