After our last car buying experience I think late, tired and cranky are the
things you need for a good deal. The guy gave a price, we gave a counter, he
came back with another counter, I said, "let's go and see if we can get our
price at another dealer tomorrow" and magically our price became ok. It was
only 10 minutes after closing when the bargaining began!

Margy

Jay Honeck wrote:

Well, if a dealer will not give me a price for a straight purchase, he
won't
sell me a vehicle. So far, I've bought only two new vehicles, and I have
never
traded another one in.

This past June Mary and I decided we needed a "knock around" car, mostly
because she was sick of driving "The Mighty Grape" around town. (It's our
ugly purple pickup truck that hauls 55 gallons of gas to the plane, and
only seats two people...I love it!)

Over the course of a few days this idea slowly transformed from "Let's buy a
beater" to "Let's buy a sports car!" (Don't ask me how -- it just did.)

So, Mary, the kids and I were up in Cedar Rapids on our days off, when we
decided to drive around and look at car lots. Driving aimlessly, we
stumbled across a pristine red-orange Mustang Cobra convertible sitting on
the lot of a used car dealership that specializes in selling only cherry
sports cars.

I didn't look twice at it, because the Mustangs we had already test driven
didn't have enough rear seat headroom for the kids. Mary, however,
instantly fell in love with the looks of the thing, so I stopped to take a
look...

It was ten minutes before closing when we walked in looking like something
straight out of the Beverly Hillbillies. I hadn't shaved in two days, and
was wearing a baseball cap and torn up jeans. Mary didn't look much better,
and the kids were cranky and hungry. The salesman took one look at me,
looked at his watch, and reluctantly agreed to let us take the car for a
test drive. He kept exchanging knowing glances with his office manager, and
you could just tell that they were really, REALLY ****ed about being late
for supper.

Well, we test drove the car, and instantly fell for it. Being a
convertible, the back seat headroom (with the top up, natch) was
dramatically better than in the hard-top -- so the kids actually fit back
there comfortably -- and the thing handled like a danged Formula 1 race car.
Besides that, it felt great to have the wind blowing in my (rapidly
diminishing) hair!

We drove back to the lot, and painfully extricated ourselves from the little
car. The salesman didn't even meet us at the car, instead waiting inside
for us to come in, completely convinced that we would be shortly on our way.
Imagine his look of utter incredulity when I asked him "How much?" This
look of surprise was only topped by the look of disbelief when I told him
that, no, we didn't want to trade anything in -- and that we were ready to
pay cash on the barrel-head for the car!

After a few minutes of dickering we wrote him a check, he gave us the keys,
and we had our car.

That guy is probably STILL shaking his head...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"