Monday, August 26, 2013

10+ year itch

I promised I'd update ya'll on what has been going on and it's not anything dramatic but stressful...we bought new cars.  Not just one car but two.  See the way this was supposed to work was since I work from home, I would give up my 11 year old car (that still ran wonderfully and looked brand spankin' new but still, it's 11 years old) and I would get the Mr's 5 year old car so there would be no car payment still for me and he'd get a new car.  In 5 years, we'd do it all over again so there would never be a car payment for me because let's face it, it's stupid to have a car payment for a car that sits there 99% of the year.

Well, about two months ago, the Mr got some spammy ad from his car manufacturer telling him how much his car was currently worth and come in and buy another one.  This got his wheels turning.  He started doing even more research than he was already doing (he'd been doing it for a year...thereby driving me slowly insane.)  He started to think that maybe both of us getting new cars was a possibility.  I didn't put a whole lot of stock on it but as he ran scenario after scenario front ways, sideways and backwards in English, Chinese, Japanese, Swahili and Latin, the numbers made it seem doable if our 15% rule off of sticker still applied as it had for every car purchase we'd ever made.

You need to know my complete and utter LOATHING of the car buying process.  It isn't a stretch to tell you that thinking about it makes me cry, gives me anxiety and pisses me off all at the same time.  Talking or hearing about it incessantly (which has been my life for the past month) puts me on edge 24/7.  I have had nothing but shitty experiences buying cars my whole life.  My dad scarred me when I bought my first new car  when he introduced himself as "asshole" to the car dealer.  You can imagine I wasn't pleased when they sold a shiny red, first edition Ford Probe out from under me when we went back a day or so later.  I'm sure they were more than happy to stick it to "asshole."  *rolling eyes*  I don't appreciate people who have power over me wielding it like a child that's found their dad's gun and I especially don't like the condescension.  It almost always ends in me nearly needing to be restrained from punching someone in the throat or family jewels.  I've left the car buying up to the Mr the past few times because I know my fuse is shorter than it used to be and that's not good if bunking in jail isn't on my to do list.  (That is sarcasm for those without the ability to detect it.)  ;-)

We ended up selling my beloved 11 year old car to the Mr's co-worker who fell in love with it.  Did I mention it had 20,400 original miles on it, we replaced the headlights and trunk struts and just gave it a once over maintenance oil change filling up all other fluids, etc?  I cried.  I mean I was kind enough to wait until she was out of sight but I'm still pretty scarred over it.  I look outside expecting to see "Big Blue" and she's not there anymore.  But she's in a new home that includes a first time driver who loves her and a mom who loves her so much she may not give the first time driver the chance to drive it.  So I feel better about it...I guess.  We sold it for pretty much full price or almost $2000 over KBB for it.  This helped immensely.  While we were hoping to retain some profit from the sale, it wasn't to be since the dealership was pretty firm on how low they were willing to go and we knew by a try just an hour prior to that that we weren't going to get much lower.  So between the money from the sale of my car, the money we planned to spend from last years tax return, the Mr's car and a loan for him, we BOTH got new cars last Thursday.


Background removed because I'll be damned if I'm giving the dealer free advertising!
You can't tell very well but my car is black and the Mr's is pacific blue.  
Mine was free and clear (yeah boy!) and he has a loan on his that replaced his previous loan and is only $30 more a month.  Not too jazzed about that but we've stayed where we've wanted for 20 years so being a couple bucks over even with inflation isn't bad.  I never thought I'd pay even a few bucks over $300 for a car payment.  Erg.

Now, why wouldn't I give the dealership free advertising if they gave us such a great deal?  Because they kept us there for 6 hours!!!  We're talking the deal was done in 90 minutes and we handed them heaps of cash and a car, no financing through them required and 6 effin' hours!!!  I was NOT A HAPPY GIRL!  I had the worst migraine of my life.  We were there from 4:15 to 10:15pm.  Do you think they even offered to let us leave for dinner?  Nope.  Everyone was griping about being hungry but we just kept sitting there.  I mean these guys were actually somewhat pleasant to deal with unlike the douchebag the Mr dealt with at the previous place before we drove out here but the incompetence and time suck was enough to make me not want to do this again for 10 years.  (Given how little I drive, I'll probably have 10-12,000 miles on it at the end of 10 years so I'm good with that.)   By the time we drove home, it was late.  We skipped dinner and just had a banana push pop which stopped that hangry feeling and we went to bed.

My neck was so screwed up from the headache the night before that I'm STILL having issues with it 3 days later.  I'm desperately trying to get the new car smell out of it because even opening the door gives me a serious sinus headache.  I've got a jasmine air freshener trying to do my bidding and I'm praying it works or I'll have to strap on my painting mask with vapor barrier filters.  I'm sure I won't get pulled over at all wearing that.

So that is how we spent the last part of last week and the weekend was spent doing some busy work.  I'm just glad all of this crap is over with and hopefully I never have to hear about cars for at least 4 1/2 years when the Mr begins researching his next car and I develop another twitch.

Do you like the car buying process?  

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16 comments:

  1. It was definitely not a fun process. I have always thrived on doing the deal in the past but this one took way too much out of me and I am sure glad it's done now. Seeing how happy you were in your new car made it all worth it though and I know we'll be better off having 2 cars under warranty than we would have been. Thanks for hanging in there with me when I got a bit too obsessed during the process!

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  2. I'm with you, I hate hate hate it! But fortunately we've been pretty lucky, except for the first time. A year or so after we were married we went to the "big city" thinking we'd get a better deal there. Um, no. We went early in the morning because we both had to work the dinner shift at the bar/restaurant we worked at that summer. We were looking for a "new to us" vehicle, and we'd seen an ad on tv for this one dealership. We got there, test drove and chose a vehicle in less than an hour. The rest of the day sucked. We knew what we could afford, and wouldn't budge. It's not that we weren't being fair to the guy, just that why make a commitment we can't keep? He figured since we were young, we were stupid (we were, but not in the way he thought). At one point he actually told me I should call my parents for for financial aid and to help make the deal. We should have walked away right then and there, but I gritted my teeth and sat there. Then they took us to the "business office" across town and we sat some more. Finally we were both going to be late for work and we told them we were leaving, so they said they would work out the financing but we could take the vehicle and they would call us and tell us the details of the loan. This is where we were stupid, the stupid fumes they pump into those places combined with the hours of bombardment made us agree to that. Once we got home and our heads cleared we realized what we had done and I called the credit union. The credit committee was meeting that day and by mid afternoon our loan was approved and they paid the dealer directly so everything else could be handled by mail. Yeeeesh.

    The more recent vehicle purchases we've done in town, and they have been much more pleasant and a matter of a few hours. I don't think I'll ever use a big lot again.

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  3. oh buying a car is never fun..my first car I waited from 9am to 6pm but atleast came out with a car...

    CONGRATS!!! those are neat cars///

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  4. I HATE buying cars. Usually I leave it to Du. We went to California on a family vacation back in 1989, our car, a 1977 Ford LTD, conked out in the dessert between LA & Vegas, and Du went out and ended up buying a new 1989 Thunderbird at Lucky Ford in Vegas. If we had WON the car, maybe it would have been LUCKY!
    Sounds like a great deal, if you got two new cars, and your payment is only $30 more than the old one. I love the picture of you and Mister between the two cars. You both look positively svelte!

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  5. Car buying is terrible. We bought one for cash a few years ago, and the dealer kept trying to upsell us and at one point, brought out financing paperwork despite the check I had ready to hand over (they had "forgotten" we were paying cash). Hours later, we got our car, but bleh, what a pain.

    My dad always says, "If you walk out feeling like you got a deal, it means you've been screwed even more than usual."

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  6. I DESPISE buying cars and I have only done it twice. The last time was almost 10 years ago for me and I keep getting questions from everyone around me when I will be getting a new car. I tell them, "when the current one gives out, because I just hate buying a new car so badly and love not having a car payment." Never mind that my car sounds like it is trying to take off into space.

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  7. Oddly enough, I don't mind car shopping. But I hate the buying part, which means we do it once every 15 years or so whether we need to or not. I literally drive a car until it dies. Love not having a payment! We were forced to buy a car a little over two years ago (long story, I won't bore you) and that one has a payment, which makes me mad. But my 2001 Buick Century with something over 165000 miles on it still gets me where I'm going and doesn't look bad. We'll stick with her until she gives up the ghost.

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  8. I'm with you on the car buying process .
    Privately I would have kept the 11 yr. old car as I hate any kind of payments. I don't do loans or credit cards and have no debt. Wish I would have known the car was for sale - it sounds like a real steal.
    I do however, LOVE that new car smell.
    Congratulations

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  9. Well, at least you don't have to worry about it again for another decade, right? I'm not sure which is worse: car buying or house buying. At least the cars are run through some sort of check and there are lemon laws to protect you against some of the more egregious practices. Home buying? Not so much. I moved recently, only our second home, and it's been...interesting. The previous owners apparently didn't know you're supposed to clean the furnace filter. Lots of other fun things like that, but mostly stupid. The one that gets me, though is the rotten sub floor in the master bath. Somehow when it was updated 5 years ago they missed that and laid tile over top of rotten floor. Yeehah!!!

    I keep telling myself it's going to be an awesome house in 3-5 years. In the mean time, I'm enjoying living in a nicer part of town.

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  10. It does suck. We usually go to Carmax, and since my MIL knows a guy there, we don't get screwed over and it's usually pretty pain free, although still so time consuming. The van I drive is 17 years old and has like 150,000 miles on it. We could survive on one car, but it would stink. His car won't be paid off until another 15 months, so hopefully the van will make it until then.

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  11. I don't hate it, but I don't look forward to it. I saved and paid cash last time, went in with my number set, and was out after a couple of hours. Mostly because I question every line on the bill of sale. One HUGE peave is that each time I've bought a car, the dealer guy has tacked on, WITHOUT ASKING, all sorts of pricey warranties and policies. Then has the gall to look innocent when questioned about it, "I just assumed you'd want these". To which I reply, "Well, I'll be happy to take them if we reduce the cost of the car by the same amount." They never seem to want to do that.

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  12. Yeah - buying cars is like visiting the dentist. But congrats on your new RIDES!! :-)

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  13. We paid cash for each of our new cars, purchased 2 years apart....and they STILL kept us there for HOURS!! Ridiculous!

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  14. I swear it took us less time to buy our house than it did to buy our cars. I'm not even exaggerating. Whyyyy is it such a long, drawn-out process!? And yes, the headaches are inevitable. I'm sorry! :( But at least it's over and you have a shiny new car!

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  15. We did the two-car buying thing about 10 years ago too. He still has his and we sold mine for a bigger car. His is now 13 years old and he wants to keep it running as long as possible. His car has almost 150,000 and is basically a tin can on wheels with no air (and by no air I mean even the fan doesn't work), but he's happy as a clam. We use mine on the weekends for errands and such. I don't enjoy the car buying process and I agree about the length of time---it took us THREE trips to Wisconsin to get the deal done! It was mind-numbingly exhausting. Buying a house was a snap compared to buying a car. Yech.

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  16. Sonata!!! I am on my second one. I actually liked some things about the older model better, but I still enjoy my car. 20,400 miles in 11 years???!!!That's crazy.

    I really dislike the car buying process. It's rather annoying. Both times that I've bought a car, I already knew exactly what I wanted and didn't need their whole pitch. I guess they're just doing their jobs, but I hate it. I zone out because I didn't ask you for all of that. My husband and I bought new cars in December 2011 from different places. When he went to a local dealership for his, the people wouldn't budge on the price, and he was like, "I'll go to the other one to check it out." The lady said, "Well, Ford is Ford, so this is the best you're gonna get." We were like, "Uh, huh." We went to the next town over and got it for about $10,000 less although we had some issues there too. We stuck to our guns and got what we wanted. I'm glad you and the Mr. were about to get a good deal even if you are paying slightly more than you wanted.

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