Most people who know me know that I LOVE negotiating for cars. LOVE it. I am the terror of car salesmen everywhere. I come in armed with a book in which I have True Market Value comparisons, price breakdowns of options and labor costs, arguments all the way down to floor mats and wheel locks for why I should get things "free." I actually threatened to walk out of a Toyota delaership over $53 wheel locks and got them to discount for leaving their dealership's name printed on the car. I got my Honda Odyssey for below invoice; the Prius II helped dad negotiate still is the lowest priced I have ever heard of, and just now, I negotiated a Honda Civic Hybrid with Leather for below invoice. And I have a tasty story to go along with it...do you want to know? Oh, of course you do!
Charlie and I had agitated for awhile about buying a hybrid for him. We had bought a used Jeep when we got the Alaska assignment, thinking it would be a good off road car, but that's really the best that can be said for it. It had lots of problems and it ate gas like crazy. So when "Cash for Clunkers" came up, we looked seriously at buying a hybrid. We didn't think we'd get even $4500 on a trade in and while we could sell the car to someone else, that's a whole level of pain we didn't want to explore. C for C seemed like a handy way to upgrade mpg at a discount.
I went in armed with all my prior stuff on Saturday and negotiated a killer price, but didn't have the car or required government paperwork with me. We made an appt for Monday and I went on my happy way. At 3 pm, my salesman called and said that all C for C deals were done as of today and I needed to bring my paperwork in today to secure the car. Sigh. Okay, I knew that all the Alaska dealerships were jumpy but if it let me keep the great price, then it might be worth the pain. I packed the kids up and headed down in the Jeep -- after surprising myself with a dead squirrel curled up in Timmy's stroller, AHHHH! -- to turn in my paperwork. Because of a title snafu, the documentation LOOKED gapped for continuous registration though it really wasn't. Hence, no Cash for Clunkers program for me. Ironically, I was totally fine with that, and would have just walked away at that point with a shrug and a wave, off to research more and perhaps delay the actual buy until next year if big sweaty sales manager hadn't happened.
The sales manager was, in a word, an ass. He got snotty with me about the fact that he has to "sat-is-fy the fed'ral gov'mint" and I in turn bowed up on him and stormed out. I fumed and raged for a few minutes in the car and then got out to fuss at the visibly chagrined salesman. I channeled my inner bitch and told him in unequivocal terms that their business had wasted my time, that I was angry and would not darken the door of their business again without some immediate ego stroking and monetary satisfaction. He proposed looking at the car as a trade in, and they offered $4700 for the trade in (which was $500 above KBB value)! Woo hoo! But then my car sales BS meter rang and I said oh-so-sweetly that they were clearly throwing me a $200 sop to my ego and that I would like to see a little more off the price of the car to make me 100% satisfied -- after all, Bob's Big Boy there really HAD been terribly rude. They swallowed hard, and took another $150 off to take it all the way down to $100 under invoice price. I'm SURE they were still making a healthy chunk of change but it made me feel all toasty. As near as I can figure without knowing what unadvertised factory kickbacks they were getting, they made about 4.5% off the deal, within my acceptable range of 3-5%. Add in the trade in and my total price was well under $20k for a very nice eco friendly not-quite-luxury-but-close car. Not my best price, but not the worst, by far -- another family was there buying an EX edition of the same car, and was paying $2500 more than I was without the leather upgrades. Eek.
They jerked me around for a couple hours, going round about financing and warranties, until I gave them Connor's eating of a bag of bribery M&Ms as a deadline for getting to the point -- if we weren't signing papers and taking keys by the time he started whining for more, I was walking out sans hybrid. It was 545 for heaven's sake, and my kids have a two hour BS tolerance limit. Phenomenal for small children, but that deadline was rapidly approaching as they whined on about "protecting my investment." I think by now they recognized the dangerous glint in my eye, and they rushed to finish up and hand me keys -- they transferred car seats for me as well. I loaded the kids up in our snazzy new car and remembered to ask if they had checked the CD player as I couldn't remember if there was a CD in there or not. The salesman hopped in the Jeep to turn it on and check the player. And now here's the part that will keep me warm and chuckling through the night...
THE JEEP WOULD NOT START.
Yes!!! At last, all my praying to the vast powers of karma have paid off! I'm almost sorry to see that car go; how awesome is that? Dealership jerks me around, drives me to feeding my kids junk food for dinner with their warranty silliness and the Jeep strikes a blow for solidarity. I'm sure it just needs a new battery, but ha! It worked perfectly for me, functioned beautifully for their trade in assessment, but apparently has a anarchic streak (like its previous owner? Love you, honey!). I don't need a present for Christmas...Santa Claus came in the guise of obstreperous 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee this year.
I smiled again, sugar dripping from my ruby lips, and said simperingly to the salesman, "Can I just tell you how glad I am that YOUR company owns this car now?"
I drove away, silently chortling, vastly enjoying the smooth seamless ride of a new car. The kids and I stopped at McD's, where both refused to eat more than one bite of plain hamburger, and drove home to gorge on zucchini muffins and fruit instead before collapsing long after boys should have been abed.
I KNOW I sound absolutely snarktastic but really, you had to endure my day to truly understand how I could take that much joy in a non starting car and flabbergasted sales guy. Kids running all over the dealership, Timmy filthy and into everything, dead animals in my garage, interrupted baking, government hijinks, insulting fat guys, and pushy offers to take more of my money...all of it combined to let me revel unabashed in the ridiculous perfection of the moment.
Just a quick description...it's a 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid EXL. It has gorgeous leather seats (we're environmentally conscious but ironically lovers of leather), heated seats, iPod jacks, mpg monitors, nice stereo, cruise control, etc. On the way home we made 33 mpg even with all the stop and go...refreshing change from 12 mpg in the Jeep! It feel underpowered compared to the Jeep, but not hugely so, and the controls and steering wheel toggle switches are all the same as the Ody, so it will be easier to transition between driving the two. It's magnetic pearl color, a cross between dark grey and blue, and it's probably the only thing I wasn't sure of about the car...Charlie prefers lighter colors so the cars don't look dirty as fast, but I couldn't pass up the deal on the car, despite the darker and undeniably pretty color. Hope Charlie likes the car as much as I do! If he doesn't, guess we could always trade... :-)
