My new car!

It's been a few months since I've mentioned anything about my car. I have been diligently researching, checking things out and test driving cars. I suppose the day I finally decided what I wanted and mentally committed to it was a couple weeks ago.

It started out that I thought I wanted the CR-V but I wasn't sure. I was concerned that my decision against the RAV4 was a bit rash and based on a bad sales experience rather than the car. I liked my Subaru sales lady too but I just didn't feel so great about the Forester. The interior was a bit dated and I guess I couldn't get over the lack of mp3 capability on the CD player.

Then I considered the Nissan Rogue. I didn't know much about the Rogue, but K-Ram kept carrying on about them so I figured I'd take a look. We were looking online and we watched some guy talking about it. He said it was an excellent first shot at this class of car and a good alternative to the everyone's got in RAV4 and the nerdy perfection of the CR-V.

That may have been what sold me. Not on the Rogue, but on the CR-V. It's nerdy perfection! I won't go into the details of all the little things I like about it.

One thing I learned from this is that I simply get annoyed with pushy sales guys. Why does it seem that they are always guys? Anyway, so I had gone to Piazza Honda in Reading the first time. I made it clear to the guy when I walked in I was not going to buy that day so back off. We took it for a short test drive and came back to the office. The price he gave me at this point was the MSRP but he said they'd work out what they would actually sell it at when I was ready to buy.

The next one was down in Arlington. The sales guy was this Mongolian I think guy whose english wasn't so great and he had just started but he seemed like a nice guy. Not pushy. I actually kind of liked him though he didn't know his stuff the way some of the other sales guys do.

Then I decided to do some looking online. I figured out exactly what accessories I wanted and all. The Honda website won't just give you MSRP, you have to choose a dealership and get an actual quote. So I chose a dealership besides Piazza to get someone near here. I chose Ebersole Honda. So they started off with a pretty decent quote, 22,245 for the car plus all my accessories.

So I decide to contact Piazza Honda. Since they were my first dealership I figure I should give them a fair shot at quoting it. So first they were just giving me the MSRP and asked if I had a price in mind. When I told them what Ebersole was offering and said I was looking for 21,700 they started carrying on about how rediculous my price was blah blah blah. So I said OK I'll go to Ebersole then. Then they said they would match their price.

At this point I sent an email back to my Ebersole guy and was like give me your best price now, I have another dealership fighting for it. So they came back with 21,975 and 4.79. Piazza came back with 22,000 and 4.89 so I told them tough luck. This was after going back and forth with them numerous times, taking up a big chunk of my Friday night and Saturday. So I told them I was done and hung up. About 10 minutes later they call up saying they would do 4.39 so I said OK.

I told them I'd be down but then I thought about it some more. I liked my Ebersole guy so much better. He didn't do all the crying about how they aren't making any money and so on. At 5 years, that would make a difference of about 200$. I kinda thought I'd go with them even if it cost me more because it was that much less painful.

I dropped them an email saying match this or beat it and I'm yours. Well they said they'd match it. If I made a decent down payment (which is 10%) then they would drop it even more. I finally called the guy (this was the first time I actually spoke to him) and confirmed everything and said I'd be down.

Well I ended up with 21,975 and 4.14% with 10%+tax and tags down. I'm pretty happy with this.

So I am driving down to the dealership when I start having second thoughts. What if this isn't the right car. What if I don't like the color. What if I don't find somewhere good to put CDs. What if I realize the easily accessible storage space isn't laid out right to work for me. What if the trunk with the pull forward seats just doesn't work that well and you can't load big things in so well. Bah.

So I decide I need to look at the car again when I get to the dealership. They seemed OK with this. Even my online guy said they would have an LX and an EX in Glacier blue, which was what I thought I wanted, so I could look everything over before I commit. Well I get in the car, this one happens to be some sort of green, and I am like oh yeah, I remember this. It looks remarkably like the last 3 times I looked at it. So I looked around, couldn't really find anything I still wanted to look at and decided I was OK with it.

So I tell the guy I am ready and we go in to fill out the paperwork. He said we could look more or take it for a test drive if I wanted but I was ready. I thought I wanted the Glacier blue but at the last second I changed my mind. I do mean literally the last second. The guy had taken my credit card info to take my deposit when I went over again and decided I wanted the silver. He kind of chuckled when he got back and changed it on the sheet. I told him that I knew I was a little nuts and he said normal people suck. Something like that anyway, at least that's how I remember it. This was a different guy, not my online guy. Apparently my online guy has very limited hours in the store. He does his online thing and passes the info on to others so people like me can come in at their convenience to handle everything.

Overall, I am pretty happy with my experience with this dealership. I am a little afraid I am saying this too early because I haven't gotten the car yet, let along driven it. But they have been pretty straight forward. The finance guy told me about the extended warranty stuff but didn't push it really.

I am a little undecided on the warranty. It's 880$ and/or 450 or so for that teflon coating stuff to prevent stains and all. Maybe I should do that stain stuff? I dunno. I am a bit undecided on that. 450 seems kinda pricey for that.

I left work early to go to the car dealership. I got home a little after 7 so it was even still light out. Today worked out pretty well. Pics will come when I get the car.