A Wheelin' And A-Dealin'

I am quite late tonight. We made a trip to buy a new used LSUV. Except that we couldn't come to terms as to price and trade-in. The boys were very sad. Me, not so much. It's a buyer's market for LSUVs. The dealer kept saying, "Well, you know, it will be hard to sell your LSUV, what with the price of gas going up." To which HH replied, "Same for the one you're trying to sell us." He gave that gander some of what was good for us geese.

Soo, after much dickering, we walked. Makes no never-mind to me. We can find another one. Now that HH has put in a gallon of antifreeze and a quart of oil, the orange light is not coming on any more. He cleaned and shined my interior. So I am good to go, until the next major catastrophe strikes. We will keep shopping.

HH has tried to buy a car there twice before, with the same result. We will not be bullied. To offer us $9000 for our trade-in, which is listed on Edmunds as $10,209, while the retail is $13,549, is not the way to trade a car with the Hillbilly family. I see no need for them to profit $4,549 from our trade-in. Not to mention the profit they would have made on the LSUV we were prepared to buy. I know deals have been made for way less.

Once upon a time, I purchased a Toyota Corolla. It was not my first Toyota Corolla, the cherry red one which was the greatest car of all time, but a lesser Corolla, a silver one with a sunroof. Anyhoo, after cooling my heels in the sales cubicle for about 3 hours, reading The Stand while the salesman kept 'getting approval from the boss', I wrangled a scathingly brilliant deal. When I went back to pick up the car a couple days later, I said, "My husband collects hats, and wants to know if he could get a Toyota hat." This is common practice, you know, for dealers to give away promotional merchandise with a sale. The salesman glared at me, and said, "With the deal you got on this car, your husband ain't gettin' no hat." Well. I was not at all offended. I laughed all the way to the bank.

From the time we walked in, I did not have a good feeling about this transaction. Any other time I've bought a car, which is, umm...8 or 9 times including excursions with HH, the salesman will offer coffee, or a soda, and basically bend over backwards to keep you there wheeling and dealing. This guy did none of that. He didn't suck up to the kids before we stuck them in the kids' waiting area. No offers of even a cup of water. And it's not like the world was beating a path to that dealership on this cool, rainy Wednesday evening. I saw ONE other customer while we were there.

In the end, after much wrangling, a deal was proposed that we both agreed to. A deal that did not include the trade-in, but the final offer we made to buy the new used LSUV. You would think this would bring about the credit check, the financing options, the paperwork. But then the salesman would not write it up as we wished, contingent on the car passing inspection before we would buy it for the price stated. He wanted us to agree to the price IF the car passed inspection. Meaning that if it didn't, they could jack up the price and say it was for repairs to pass inspection. No deal. We were not in the market for a car that could not pass inspection. Even though it looked great, there was one little noise that at first the salesman denied, then finally admitted that the service man, an old friend of HH's, had heard. Not so fast, Mr. Haney. We were having none of that. By simply refusing to write the contract as we wished, the deal was off. Oh, he says he will call HH with the inspection result in the morning, but that ain't happenin'. Done deal. The nail in the coffin was the request for a deposit. I have written deposits before. For $150 to hold a car. But Mr. Haney wanted a deposit check of $1000. Did I have that much available? You bet. Did I feel like writing that check? Nope. I said so. Mr. Haney said, "Well, it's not like I'm going to cash it. It's just a deposit check." Fine. Since you're not going to cash is anyway, let's make it $1.00. I didn't say that, but I wanted to. He can think we're paupers, he can think we're hicks, he can think we're cheap-a$$es. I don't give a rat's patooty. That's not how the Hillbilly family does business. Through all this, he never even asked for proof of employment, a SS#, a driver's license...nothing to run a credit check. Methinks he would really need a crying towel if he knew what he let walk out that door. NO SALE FOR YOU!

Ka-ching! See the red No Sale thingy pop up on the mechanical cash register? Are you proud of me, Mabel? I wasn't born yesterday, you know. And neither were you. Tomorrow, maybe, if you're reading this on Thursday. I took your advice. This buyer was beware.

I told HH that when Mr. Haney calls, HH should explain that he lost the deal last night, but if he has trouble finding a buyer for that LSUV that is so hard to sell these day, he can call us back for OUR original offer, including the trade-in. Oh, and keep in mind that our trade-in will have even more miles on it by then, and we may have already bought something somewhere else.