Wheels

Hey, it's Friday, everyone!  If you're among the majority of folks who don't have to work on the weekends, good for you, we've almost made it to a couple of well-deserved days off!

My wife and I bought a new car last weekend.  This is significant for a number of reasons, the primary one being that the last time we did this was almost fourteen years ago!  The other reason is one I'll explain below.

As I've noted here, I work in a healthcare sales position and have responsibility for a pretty large geographic territory.  During the worst of the initial COVID-related lockdowns and limitations, this job became a work-from-home gig, which was OK with me, as I'd done that before.  My counterparts and I have been asked since sometime in the summer of 2020 to begin getting out to see active and prospective clients a day per week, then two, then three, and now back to our original model of four days per week in the field.  Complicating matters is that many of the active clients for whom I'm responsible are still not open to vendor visits, and I'm still not keen on flying or traveling overnight unless absolutely necessary.

But I'm out there in the field four days a week, and even though I had maintained my former vehicle (a 2007 Honda Pilot) pretty well over the years, and in late 2019 I invested about $3500 in some maintenance and repairs to be able to keep driving it.  Despite that, it had almost 227,000 miles, and had become noisy and a little less enjoyable to drive (the driver's seat was broken down a bit by a man my size sitting in it for all of those miles).

My wife and I went on a day trip in her car a few weekends ago and she said that she would like for me to consider looking at a new vehicle, as she was worried not only about me experiencing a breakdown hours from home in such a well-used vehicle, but that we didn't currently own a car that she's feel confident taking a long trip in.  So I let that marinate a bit and the following Friday we went out to two car dealers.  And had vastly different experiences.

I suppose a lot has changed in the 14 years since we last did this, but I was very pleased that there was a lot less haggling, a great deal more freedom in taking test drives (WITHOUT the salesperson tagging along), and a general sense of agreeability.

That was true at the first dealership, a local operation that sells Cadillacs, Volvos and Subarus.  We had bought a Volvo there in the 80s and a used Honda there in the late 90s, but none since.  We paired up with a very considerate woman who spelled out their current situation--few cars and more coming but not right away.  We tried out a Subaru Outback wagon and liked many aspects of it, but after 14 years of SUV driving, the dimensions weren't quite what I prefer.  She worked up a very thorough proposal with multiple finance and payment options (based on term, down payment and such) and we left with some useful information.

So we had lunch and decided to venture south to a Honda dealer where we visited a couple of years earlier.  They had been very low-key and agreeable when we went there previously, and we expected the same.  Wrong.

When we parked in their customer lot we were putting on masks for everyone's protection and I noticed a young man in a logoed polo shirt literally pacing back and forth in front of us.  He then assailed us with questions and wanted to know how motivated we were to buy.  I said we were just exploring and he continued to press for a target payment amount, which I knew was low for the class of vehicles we were considering, and he eventually showed us a top of the line Honda Passport, which is their two-row-seating large SUV.  Nice car, he offered a test drive, but said he'd need to take it to get gas.  When he returned he pretty much insisted we test-drive the car and we agreed that this was more to our liking, from the standpoint of space, comfort, amenities, etc.  But I felt the car was too expensive for our parameters, and they had few alternatives in stock.  

We returned, I told him that we liked the car but that it would have to be a situation where the cost was more in line with our expectations.  He said he was going inside to grab a business card, and returned about fifteen minutes later with a proposal like the other dealership provided.  And someone else's business card.  But he got our phone number so I suggested he and his manager work on things to see what they could arrange on this car.

I won't share more details about our further interaction with this person, but suffice it to say that his actions were a complete turn-off, drawing a hard line at a price substantially more than I told him I wanted, and then sharing suggestions about used cars when we specifically said we wanted a new vehicle. I eventually cut him off, as all contact thereafter was via text message.

Somewhere along that next week my wife suggested that maybe we should consider the local Honda dealer.  Worth noting that we had some issues with them twenty years ago (a salesperson literally would not return the keys to our car until we bought one of theirs, and later I took a Honda that I bought elsewhere there for service and was treated rudely), so she said that maybe things had changed.

She was right.  I stopped by after completing some field work a week ago today, met with a very agreeable fellow, test drove another Passport, brought it home for my wife to see, and went back and asked the rep to work up a proposal.  He then texted me the link to apply for financing, which I liked (online and secure, always a plus) and I applied the next morning.

Our good credit put us in position to buy the vehicle we wanted, trade in our old car with no further down payment, with a lower payment than the other dealer and included extended warranties on several components.  Turns out that they had more Passports than about any other model of vehicle, so we were in a good position.

Drove it for work this week and am very happy.  The moral of this story?  Things change, don't assume anything, and deal with people you feel good about.

Finally!  Ask me in about ten years how this car is doing!