PAINFUL PURCHASE

Why does buying a vehicle have to be such a time consuming bummer?  

I’ve purchased or leased eleven vehicles in my lifetime and each experience has been extremely frustrating.   Alas, this weekend I’m once again facing hours upon hours sitting in a cubicle listening to a pushy salesman, then his pushy boss try to convince me they are giving me the best deal possible.   And no matter how many hours I invest to get better terms, I always end up leaving feeling like a sucker.

My first purchase when I was 18 was a used cherry red Volkswagen Scirocco.  It was my pride and joy.  My favorite car was a BMW 320i convertible.  I drove in style during my first marriage when I worked at Pepperdine University.  There is nothing quite like driving along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu with the ocean breeze blowing through your hair. 

How things have changed!  Nearly thirty-six months ago I convinced my current husband to let me lease a minivan.  It wasn’t easy.  When we started planning a family he vowed to never, ever drive a minivan.  However, I finally begged him for one after breaking my back lugging three car seats up into a massive SUV day after day for over a year.  We signed a three-year lease expecting to go back to an SUV when our triplets were old enough to climb into a car.   But I’ve become one of those moms… the ones who can’t live without the convenience of sliding doors and an easy to get to third row, cool ride be damned.

With my lease ending in less than two weeks, salespeople at the Honda dealership have been hounding me for the past several months.  They no doubt want to get me into a new vehicle.  A couple days ago my husband and I loaded up the kiddos and headed to the dealership with the intention of quickly buying out my current lease.  I filled out a credit app on-line well in advance to speed up the process.  We knew we were in trouble when the salesman commented that typical car purchases average six hours.  They also informed us they couldn’t use the on-line credit app because it had been more than seven days.  A tidbit of information I would have appreciated knowing before coming down there.  We left when the boss wouldn’t come clean on what the interest rate would be, instead pestering us about how much we wanted our monthly payment to be.  Our restless kids provided a great excuse to get out of there.

Fortunately one of my co-workers is married to Bull Earnhardt who runs a family owned business that owns several dealerships.  Bull helped us buy my husband’s car last year.  Even with an introduction from the owner to the General Manager, we still spent over three hours getting the deal done and on our way.  We just discovered we can buy out the lease at any Honda dealership.  And If we’re going to have to spend hours sitting in a dealership it might as well be one where we kind a, sort a know someone.  So we’re leaning towards doing our deal there.  It doesn’t hurt that they have Carne Asada on Saturdays. 

In my research I discovered it is possible to be in and out of a dealership in 60-90 minutes.  Edmunds, an on-line resource for car information, gives tips on how to speed up the progress.  It’s worth reading Kelly’s BlueBook’s Ten Steps to Buying a Car before you even start the process.  Nevertheless I believe the concept of painlessly buying a car is an absolute myth.   What’s needed is the fortitude to bite the bullet and accept that half a day of your life is going to go right out the window.  However, if you can get a free lunch out of it, you’re ahead of the game.