I hate car buying

Consider the Nissan Frontier. My mother is quite partial to GM trucks, but since Chevy isn't making a vehicle in that classification and the Nissan dealer was no-pressure, no-hassle and no-BS, she went home with a Frontier. Still pleased but also a little surprised.

 

Not sure how big of a company you work for but check to see if it has any employee deals with any of the automakers.

We just picked up a new Pathfinder on Friday. In the negotiation I got the salesman's best price when I told him that I loved the car but the company I worked for had an employee discount with GM and that I needed to test drive an Acadia. He tells me to hang on and goes to see the manager, both come back and price is reduced quite a bit, said they will give the same discount.

We still went to look at the GM, not sure if the threat to leave would have got the reduction anyway but sure happy to pay less.

 

Not owning a car since I moved to DC in 2008 was the second greatest decision I ever made other than deciding to move to DC.

 

Not in the market to buy for quite a while, so I'm just curious what the new Chevy will do for the mid-size market in the future. I think Nissan and Toyota are the only ones still in. Rangers and Dakotas are done, and Colorado was on hiatus.

 

I haven't figured out why after three decades the Big 3 decided to stop making small trucks. The market is clearly there for them. The only thing I can figure is from a fuel economy standpoint, there isn't much difference than the small trucks and full size. My Ranger and the 2000 I had both have the biggest V6 Ford makes. I don't get much better mileage than an F150. You can them with the four cylinder option, but to me a truck with a four cylinder is about as much use as an unloaded gun. They don't have enough power and torque to pull anything. A buddy of mine has a Nissan with a four cylinder. It gets great mileage, but I just laugh at him when he is pulling his boat out of the water because it strains his truck to the limit. I always say, "rubber band's gonna break on your toy truck, sweetie."

 

No shit.

My car finally died a couple of months ago. I stole my wife's SUV, and bought her a used car.

I wanted to get it done fast, and looked at several cars online. I emailed a couple of dealerships, and only one even got back to me. They claimed the car I was interested in had been sold -- though it remained on their website for weeks.

I asked about other cars. Their message was always to "come in".

I told them I was prepared to pay cash, and told them the car I was going to buy at Carmax if they couldn't come up with a better deal.

When they continued with the "come in" bs, I called Carmax. They had the car cleaned and prepped when we got there. We were in and out in less than an hour.

The dealership continued to email me for months asking me to come in. They clearly don't read their emails, since I told them excatly what I bought at Carmax.

I spent $19,000 on a nice used car, so it's not like there wasn't room for a profit for them.

I just don't understand why they string along someone who is ready to buy. If they can make a couple grand in an hour, they should. If they're not interested, I'll take my business elsewhere.

 

Mixed feelings on Carmax. As my brother-in-law said, when you go into a business, look at how many people are working there and realize that they are all being paid.
There are a ton of people working at Carmax.
On the car buying, however, it seemed pretty good. All of the cars had been worked over and were as cherry as possible. Posted price is the price, so no haggling. 30-day warranty helps eliminate the unknowns of a private party purchase.
On the car selling, they absolutely rape you, but they will buy ANY car you want to get rid of. I was hoping for $2000 for my old truck, got $700. No haggling.

 

I feel like the price was fair. Maybe I could have done better, but the car was in brand new condition as far as the interior and exterior were concerned. Haven't had any problems or regrets.

It was the exact car my wife wanted, and the experience was easy.

Actually, it's funny. We purchased it from a suburban Carmax, about 45 minutes away, on a Saturday. Just before we left, I got a service call. As luck would have it, it was for a hotel, about 10 minutes from Carmax.

We went out there and bought the car. She took the new car home. I took the old car and went and did the service call. When I got there, they remarked on how fast I got there. I was laughing to myself, as I had bought a car in the time between taking their call, and getting to the job.

 

I also don't understand why there's so little variety in trucks. Everything is a four-door monster. All I'd need is a single cab stepside for around town driving and the occassional job hauling mulch or fence boards or a lawn mower, not some monster truck. I'd have to buy a 15-year-old model for something like that.

 

If Toyota came out with the 4X2, four banger, stick that they used to put out in the 1980s, which also got great gas mileage, I would get it in a heartbeat.

 

As the son and grandson of car dealers, I've always thought I should have started a business where I'd go car shopping with people and doing the haggling for them. Of course, it would only work once or twice before the dealers 86ed me.

 

I'm off in the morning to buy, and I'd like to ask the masses one more question.

I have a friend who is adamant about buying used cars. Said he would never buy a new car. I'm likely going to buy a Nissan Versa, which seems like a nice little basic car that gets good gas mileage (exactly what I'm looking for).

Here are my options: New 2014 for $14,000, or a 2013 with 23,000 miles for $11,500. They are at separate dealers.

Obviously, the 2013 still has a bit of a factory warranty, which is nice. That $2,500 difference is nice too. But there's just something about a new car ...

Whatcha think?