Mommie Dearest Strikes Again...: Getting from point A to point B...or trying to.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Getting from point A to point B...or trying to.

I haven't posted much the past few days because the process of looking for a new car has taken over our lives. We are very methodical about this...we go to Edmunds.com to get an idea of what the dealer paid, we go to consumerreports.com for safety, mpg, and reliability ratings. We are ruled by our wallets rather than our hearts when it comes to buying cars.

After all of the preliminary work, we venture out to the dealerships.

And THAT is exhausting.

You see, we refuse to play their game of taking a test drive and waiting around for the inevitable back and forth between us, the salesman, and the floor manager. We prefer to take a test drive after we see if we can come to an agreement on price. We refuse to haggle...we KNOW what the dealer's cost is and we will not pay more than a few hundred over that cost. If they don't want to work with us, we'll move on to someone who will.

They don't like this.

Some of them have been pretty good about it. They have given us very competitive quotes, without a lot of haggling and without following their "script". Some however, have not. Some have earned the car salesman's reputation of smarmy, sleazy, disingenuous, devious tactics.

And THOSE really annoy me.

They are exhausting.

The good? Hyundai (Solantra & Elantra Touring), Subaru (Impreza)

The bad? Toyota (Prius) and Mazda (Mazda3)

The unknown? Honda (Insight, Civic)

We (gulp!) will be heading to Honda today.

****I'd love to hear any feedback about any of these cars - if anyone has one of them.***

We HATE buying new cars. This is why we hang onto our cars for so long. The whole process sucks the life right out of you.

*Sigh*

So that's what we have been up to, mostly. Here are a few random photos from the past few days...