An Odyssey of Change

Change is inevitable; I hate it nonetheless. I also hate car dealerships (no offense, Jerm), which made last night's car-buying excursion a particularly distasteful event in my mind.

I have been to purchase three previous cars:

1. At the start of my third year of medical school, I began the quest for My First Car. Newspaper ads left a lot to be desired, so one Saturday I headed down to a used car lot. The cheapest car on the lot (that lacked a flame paint job) was a 1995 Hyundai Accent. The car still cost more than I thought I could spend as a debt-laden student. But the salesman quoted me a price that was significantly lower than the sticker price and I thought it would be a good deal. So I left to get car insurance and buy a license plate (In PA you buy a plate for yourself. When you sell the car, you keep your plate and put it on your next car. The new owner is responsible for replacing the license plate). When I came back after purchasing said items, the salesman informed me that he made an error saying that he could sell the car for so low a price and his manager wouldn't approve of the sale. But I had just bought a plate and insurance! I am sure I could have used these for a different car, but I didn't know when or where I would even find another car to buy. I ended up paying almost a thousand dollars more than I thought I was going to get the car for. The salesman seemed genuinely contrite and did throw in about two hundred dollars worth of "extras" (free service coupons and speaker upgrades). Still I felt like I had gotten screwed on the price.

(sidenote: the Hyundai had a brewing malady that led to its ultimate demise, namely faulty welding that caused the body to mostly disconnect from the chassis. Hyundai refunded me all but $900 of the purchase price after two years of ownership. I felt a little less screwed about the price after that, despite the fact that the car was a total lemon).

2. I spent my first few months of residency carless, commuting to work mostly on bike, but I sometimes walked or ran and Mac would pick me up from work a couple of times a week. But as soon as the rainy weather hit, I knew I needed a new car. I decided on a Toyota Corrolla because of its top rated reliability, something I valued highly after the Hyundai incident. I collected newspaper ads for a week and I knew the prices cold, in fact, I knew them better than the Toyota manager. I held my ground and think I got a pretty good price. Both the finance guy and an independent insurance agent seemed to think so, too. Not having a lot of cash in my recent graduate status, I financed about half of the car with a four year loan through the dealership. They had a special 5% loan, but it seems I didn't qualify for it despite a credit score around 720 - I didn't have any history of loan repayment (my med school loans were still in the grace period). Didn't it show financial responsibility that I had never before been in debt and that I had never even once carried a balance on my credit card? Apparently not. They wanted someone who had been in debt and had proved they could make the payments on time. I got an 8% loan for four years. I thought I would pay extra each month and therefore save myself a lot of the interest charges, but I later found out all four years of interest were calculated up front and immediately added to the amount I owed. Paying early wouldn't save me money at all! It never occured to me that this was something I needed to watch out for. I felt like I had gotten screwed on the financing.

3. When Mac needed a new truck we bought it through an acquaintance who had some incentive not to screw us over entirely. I think he gave us a fair price. We paid cash and avoided financing altogether. I don't feel like we got screwed at all, but we had an insider on our side.

With these experiences in mind, my cinicism was at its peak and I had a bit of a perma-glare plastered on my face as we walked into the Honda dealership in Eugene. Fortunately, Mac had done a ton of internet research and was working with four different area dealerships on-line and on the phone. Pitting the dealerships against one another and using the information he had gathered, Mac had pre-negotiated a great price for the car (one dealership even told Mac Eugene was stupid for selling us the car for that low a price). And we had a pre-approved non-dealership loan in hand. But things were going our way and the dealership had financing for even lower (3.9%!- and trust me I asked plenty of questions before signing on the dotted line). The wildcard, though, was our trade-in. That trusty little Corrolla had served me well for the past seven years and if it could have fit two car seats, I would have kept it for another 7 years. The car had a Kelly bluebook value around $4900. It had a few scratches, but no major damge and only 58,000 miles. Two Salem dealerships said they'd give us $4700 for it; Eugene's first offer was $2200. My glare escalated to a dagger-shooting grimace. We told them they were way off and they came back with an offer of $4300, which we accepted. In retrospect, we might have been better off telling them we expected $4700 for the car or refusing their $4300 to see if they'd come up a bit higher, but by that point I don't think either of us cared about the 400 bucks. I don't feel all that screwed, but I wouldn't really mind if a meteor fell on the dealership either.

Bye bye little Corrolla, Hello Odyssey.