New Car Story

I've been promising this entry for over a week, and no more too-early mornings have intervened.  So here it is: I finally got a car to replace my Odyssey.  

First Attempt

I mentioned in the previous entry that I'd located my minivan of choice, a 2006 Toyota Sienna, down in Zeeland.  I called, and they did in fact still have that car.  I arranged with them to take it for a test drive, and then arranged with the local Toyota dealership to have it checked over.  Just as well that I did... The dealership (and most mechanics) will charge you about $100 to look through the car's internals, but it's unfortunately worth the money.  The dealership, having no stake in whether I bought this car, informed me that several key pieces of maintenance hadn't been done, and there was a near-thousand dollar repair that needed fixing.  In addition, the back two tires were heavily used, one to the point of  being illegal to drive on (and one pothole away from sprouting a hole).  There were a number of smaller things wrong with it, too.  

In light of all of that, the dealership that owned it shrugged and said, "we'll fix the thousand-dollar issue and drop the price $1000, but that's all we can do for you."  So now the car had about another $1000 worth of repairs left needing fixing.  In addition, when I inspected the outside and inside, the inside was a bit torn up.  It was clean, because of course it was.  But the elbow-pads were torn off the armrests on the doors, leaving sharp edges behind.  And there were other signs of wear that suggested the previous owner really didn't care about their car.  I told the dealership I'd get back to them, took my copy of the estimate, and wrote out the details of the car: condition, price (now $8000), and contact info for the dealership.  I wasn't sure I was going to be able to find a better car.

Second Attempt

Annoyed with the whole ordeal, and worried that I wouldn't be able to find any other Siennas for sale, I called both Toyota dealerships in my city asking after the '06 Sienna.  The first one had a single car matching my description, the second didn't even have that.  So again, I made an appointment to check out the car.  Confused by the fact that this was already the Toyota dealership, I didn't initially make an appointment to get the car checked.  I went to check out the car and confused the salesman by not wanting to test drive it.  I was, perhaps, put off by the pricetag: $11,000.

It was also here that I got a taste of the more old fashioned used car salesmanship tactics.  The first car place either didn't care about my case or simply doesn't engage in such tactics, but this dealership pays its car salesmen on commission, and it's only a short leap of logic to understand that the salesmen are then only held back by their own morals from being cutthroat, lying, scheming, horrible people.  I doubt my particular salesman was trying very hard, but I still caught more than 3 pieces of bad psychology: "This is a high demand car, it might be gone in a couple days- but no pressure."  Yeah, sure.  Totally believe you with the no pressure thing.  Yep.  

I missed most of the bad psychology the first time around, but my memory was good enough that I was able to examine it in retrospect and get pretty annoyed.  Still, I had examined the car and gotten the dealership's report. All the regular maintenance seemed to be in order.  But the bad psychology had gotten me thinking, and made me distrustful.  I contacted my parents, who informed me that I should pick a local mechanic I thought well of and get it checked.  My parents are much wiser than me about such things, and it made sense anyway, so I did in fact make another appointment and this time took it out for a "drive" which went right to the local mechanic.  

Second and a Half Attempt

Unlike my last waiting room experience, this one was basically just quiet and somewhat awkward until I chatted with the staff a bit.  The place is Zandee's, and one of their employees goes to my church.  Eventually, they came back with a report: this car, too, wasn't perfect, but it was flawed in somewhat amusing ways.  The horn, of all things, was broken.  For some reason I found that vastly amusing.  All the working parts in a car, the vast intricacies that make a car move... and the horn was broken.  It was also missing the spare tire. Finally, there was some darkish residue around the valves by the motor, suggesting to the mechanics that someone may have missed an oil change or two.  

I took it back and had the Toyota dealership check the car's history.  There was a short period of about 15,000 miles where the car didn't have recorded oil changes.  That was it.  When I got back, the salesman in charge of my particular case was busy with a higher priority deal: an older couple, perhaps buying a new car.  My parents, given their choice of the two cars I'd seen, vastly preferred this car.  Which left me with the dubious experience of trying to out-psychology the people that do this for a living.  My father coached me.  Included were tips such as:

• Come with your checkbook, and make your offer.  Tell them, "I'll give you X for it, and here's my checkbook, I'm ready to make the down payment right now."
• If you're not making any headway with the salesperson, ask for the sales manager.  The sales manager isn't paid on commission and as such prefers cars sold and moved over extracting the very best price.
• Come prepared with a second offer, so you can say "well, I have another offer for X, but I like this car a little more, so I'll give you Y for it."  This tells them you're not their only option and that you're willing to walk away if they don't work with you.  
• Be actually prepared to walk away, and see if they chase you.  If they don't chase you, call again in a week or so and say "My offer is still there; you ready to talk business yet?"  
• Know how much the car is actually worth, using Kelly Blue Book. Keep in mind that this price is both the worth of the car (including all repairs) and a fair markup for the dealership, meaning they will make a profit.

Needless to say, there was a lot to keep in mind. But this did seem to be the best option.  As it happened, God smiled on me.  It was the 31st of March, the final day of the first quarter of the calendar year.  And one of the employees, perhaps feeling sorry for me, informed me while he was looking up the car history, that if they could sell one more used car by the end of today, everyone would get a bonus.  Valuable information. 

So with the salesperson still busy, I lingered at the desk until I could speak to the sales manager.  I offered him $7.7k for the car, and gave him the line that I was quite willing to make the down payment immediately.  He made grumpy noises about Kelly Blue Book, as did some of the other staff.  Apparently they use a different metric for determining the worth of a used car.  I didn't let that deter me, and waited patiently.  Finally, the manager gave in, surprisingly without even trying to haggle.  So in the end I got the car for just over $8k, with all fees, taxes, and etc. figured in. 

This is my new (to me) car: a 2006 Toyota Sienna.  It's 7 years and 117,000 miles newer than my old car.  Longer time readers will know I'm really not fond of red in the slightest (this is maroon, but it's red enough).  I am, however, pragmatic enough to care more about the internals of the car than the paint job, and other than the horn (heh) and the spare tire (easily acquirable at a junkyard), it's in near-perfect condition.  Also it has an MP3 player input, meaning at long last, I'll be able to plug my tablet into my car and play music.  I'm excited about that. 

Less happily: I now have to dispose of the Odyssey.  The dealership offered me $200, which is a pittance for a car that has a lot of usable outer parts and probably a number of good internal parts, too.  I've been dragging my feet, but there's a transmission place about a half hour away that I should call first.  They like Honda, and Odysseys in particular, and they've done me a good turn in the past.  The car is worth anywhere from $250-800, but there are multiple things wrong with it, so I'll see what they think it's worth.  There's also a junk yard near here I need to visit anyway, to get a spare tire.  They would also probably have an offer. 

I'm probably dragging my feet for sentimental reasons as well as the fact that it's effortful to use the phone and arrange for the "death" of my old car.  But the license plate and insurance have been transferred to the new car, so I'd best get on that soon.