Adventures in Car Buying!

Posted on 26. Jun, 2010 by Raquel in News, Thoughts

My new car

So yesterday was a good day. I left the car dealership not feeling buyers remorse or feeling like I had been duped by the dealer. I got exactly what I wanted at the price I wanted! Just a few tips: research the dealerships, take a highly intelligent person with you, be prepared to walk away. Wendy was in town visiting and I had planned to go car shopping when she arrived in town. She’s an MD and a fantastic cellist and cook and all around sweetheart. She also has a freak memory I might add. Anyway, she and I (mostly she) researched the dealerships. I gave her my options/wants. I had narrowed down my list of cars to:

• Civic Sedan,
• Accord Sedan LX,
• GLS Hyundai Sonata,
• Ford Escape,
• Ford Focus Sedan,
• Nissan Altima,
• Nissan Murano,
• Toyota Camry,
• Mazda 6,Mazda 3,
• Mazda CX7

From that, my top 3 were:

• Ford Escape
• Nissan Murano
• Mazda CX7

I realized that I still wanted a somewhat gas efficient “SUV”, if that existed! Wendy found a large Ford dealership near my apartment, and we checked out their stock. She theorized that it was a good time to go buy since it was the end of the month and quarter. She also liked the fact that they had 30 Escapes on the lot, she thought they might be wanting to move some of those. We also made a list of what options would be desirable. I really wanted a good sound system, she suggested other practical things like 4×4, engine size, etc. (I had the big glassy eyes while she had the savvy determined practical look while looking at cars online, lol!) We also made a plan as to what monthly payments (range), total price of car, and interest rate of the loan we wanted. We also researched the worth of my trade-in and had a price in mind that we wanted for it. We had a plan!

It took about 1.5 minutes for a car salesman to come to us as soon as we got there. We immediately asked about the Escapes. He took us to them all the while trying to gauge our intentions. I had a color in mind and luckily they had 3 in stock. Luckily, one of them matched all of my criteria. It had/was an XLT,4×4, sunroof, blue tooth, sync, syrius radio.  The engine size was smaller than I wanted, but I was told it would be better overall for gas mileage. I knew I wanted the car during the test drive, but I held my poker face and let Wendy do all the talking and later negotiating. Wendy was incredible, not to get into too much details, but she surpassed all of our expectations in our price goals for my trade-in and car price. At one point I was ready to sign, but she told me to wait while she negotiated an even lower price! It was a thing of beauty to behold! We got a great deal on our first try. I had really wanted to test drive a Murano, but I didn’t think I could get all of the options I had with the Escape. I signed on the dotted line and am back to having a car payment again. It was a good 2.5 years without one, but I couldn’t be happier with my new car!

Me and Wendy with my old car

Me and Wendy with my new car