Alright! The story you've all been waiting for. I've waited for the anticipation to build among the few faithful readers, the story of me buying my new car.
First to preface my story need to say that my brother Jared had just gone through buying a car so he was the skilled professional who helped me.
It was the Saturday after the car fire, only two days had passed since I had lost "The Beast". Jared and I set out around 9 am to look at cars. We visited a few dealers and I sat in one or two cars but nothing really felt right. Around 11 we stopped at a dealer where my brothers friend worked. They were all over the lot showing me everything. We finally decided to take a Pontiac G6 for a test drive and we were hungry (we had spent almost two hours looking at cars!) We test drove it and I liked it; it was a fun car, a 2006 and had about 80k on it. They were asking $12,000 for it but had said they could get it down to $10,000 since Jared knew the manager. I said at lunch that I couldn't go above $7500 and when we told that to them when we returned they immediately said they would do it for $8000, which I said no to. We left for Salt Lake to the Auto Mall. Now at this time we were getting tired but my brother said that he hadn't seen the car that I was going to buy yet. The G6 is important in my story so just tuck that away right now!
After going around almost all the dealerships at the Auto Mall we were tired. It was around 4:30 and we decided to call it a day and head home. As we were driving down the road we saw a sign outside of the Riverton Hyundai show that said they had cars starting at $3995 so we thought we could swing in and have them show us the cheapies. We went inside and no one approached us. This was odd since everywhere else we went we could barely make it out of our car before someone was on us. Finally we went to the front desk and asked for some help. They called over a salesman but he said he was with someone else so they called someone from across the street to come help us. As Chris walked up to us their was something a little strange about him. When he said hello and that is name was Chris the gaydar went off. Nevertheless we asked to see his $4000 cars. We jumped in a car and drove to the other lot and couldn't find any of them but we stopped and he showed me a VW Bug. It was new and it was blue but I just couldn't imagine myself in a bug so told him no. We got back in the car and was turning around when another salesman called out to Chris. The talked with each other and Chris asked where the car we wanted to see was and turns out it was sold but we found out that the same car my brother had just bought was just taken in. This peaked our interests and decided to take a look at the newly acquired vehicles.
We drove around the back lot but with no luck of finding the car and decided to call it a day. As we were leaving the lot my brother asks, "Hey, what about that Grand Prix?" We stopped and jumped out and my brother asked him how the Pontiac line runs, Grand Prix to G6 or the other way around. When Chris said it starts with G5, G6, Grand AM, Grand Prix my brother interrupts him and says for $6500 we'll drive off the lot today!
I was a little shocked but didn't have any objections. Chris got all giddy and said we should test drive it first so as he ran in to get the keys I pulled out my iPhone and searched for the blue book price. High blue book was $12,000 to low blue book of $9500! We got in and drove it for awhile the whole time Chris was in the back seat giggling away. When we got back we told him again and again that we would take it for $6500 as is and drive it off the lot today. We went inside to work the deal.
We sat down and he went to talk with the guy in the glass office and came back with his paper. He said, "Ok the car is priced at $11,900 so if you can just sign on the line and we will start the paperwork!" We both looked at him in amazement and asked what happened to our $6500 deal. He laughed and said that he had to offer it to us at that price, crossed it off and wrote down $6500 as is and had me initial it. He went back to the glass office. When he left Jared and I discussed how funny it would be if when he came back with his counter-offer if we got up and went to the break room, which was also a glass room. He came back and said that he hadn't known that the car had already gone through the shop and had its oil changed and so forth so, so he counter-offered at $8900. We both acted shocked and asked him what happened to our $6500? His response was that it was in the middle of the two and with all the work that had been done inspecting it and doing the oil change and also offered us three free oil changes and a 30 day exchange but we both stood up and said we needed to discuss it. He was a bit shocked at us but laughed as we said we needed out glass office to talk in.
I sat down in a chair and pulled up another car site and found that the high end trade in was $6500! I was amazed that we had hit it right on the nose! I said I would go up to $7000 for all the work they had done and that they didn't need to give us the exchange and oil changes. I explained to him once we came back that IF they paid top dollar for it, which we all know they didn't, then I would add on the expenses for doing their oil change and inspections and so forth then we would bump up our offer to $7000, final offer. He wrote it down and had me initial it again and left for the glass office.
As he came back to us he didn't come straight to us but went and got a folder first. We knew we had it! He came back and said very seriously, "Well, it's been great doing business with you but we just couldn't do it...", then after pausing he said in the most gay voice that I could imitate, "Just Kidding! Congratulations on your new car!!!"
Well, sorry for the long post but it's a great story! There was a lot of details that I left out but you get the point. It's amazing what you can negotiate while buying a car. It's such a fun experience that I would recommend it to anyone!
So until next time, remember, never pay sticker price!
