New Car

Happy 100th Blog Post to me!

Clint and I are notorious for switching cars (and houses). I mentioned that in a previous post, but we've had our van for 4 years and it's about 500 miles from crossing over to the big 100,000 mile mark. We've never actually owned a vehicle (okay... maybe the BMW's in Germany) that has hit the big 6 figure mark. We are taking a long trip soon and we were thinking of the hassles of 7 kids, 7 seats, teenagers in a smallish van etc. Plus the fact that we need new tires. So, we thought it was time for a vehicle change. We started the car search process and I absolutely HATE shopping for cars. I really don't like pulling into a car lot and seeing 5-6 men standing by the front doors ready to POUNCE!

So, we didn't find just the perfect car, but we knew what style we were looking for. We wanted an SUV with 8 seats and Clint really wanted one with a long back end for extra room for trips, camping etc. He left his name with a few car dealers and yesterday one called us and said they had the perfect car for us. They had picked it up at a car auction that day specifically because they knew what we were looking for. It had EVERYTHING we wanted. It wasn't white... which was a big deal for me. I don't know why but I HATE white cars and I always end up with them! It has leather seats with heaters in them, bluetooth, onstar, DVD player and 6 CD player. It's really beautiful and I love it! It has 47,000 miles and is a 2005.

So- we sit down to make a deal (that's the other part I hate). I think car salesmen must go to a special school that teaches them to write the price of the car in black sharpie ink, then cross it out and write a new price. They take it to their "boss" and do more crossing out and circling and then come back again. Well... Clint and I are not very "patient". We told the guy our bottom line and said it's take it or leave it, don't come back with your paper. Of course, they came back 588 dollars higher, just because they have to TRY and we got up to walk out. The car salesman said, "are you going to walk away over $588?" So of course we said, "are you going to lose a sale over $588?" So we got the car. And a funny side note- I told the saleman that they must go to school to learn how to make those figures on the white paper... just trying to be funny. He says all serious "no, I just graduated from high school and got this job" LOL

As we were sitting in the finace office where they try and get you to buy warranty stuff... Clint and I were just cracking up thinking about the many car experiences we've had. I just have to share a couple!

When we were newly married, we were trying to buy a car and couldn't get ANYONE to sell to us. Clint was from New Zealand and had NO credit to his name and I barely had any myself. We had very entryline jobs and weren't making all that much money. So after a few unsuccessful tries, we took an old Cadillac Seville that my Dad had given us in to give it another try. The Caddie wasn't running very well, and every once in a while, when you pushed on the gas, it would make a loud revving sound and go nowhere. It was very embarrassing when you were sitting at a stop light or something. So, Clint and I found a car we liked, went to sit in the glassed in office while they took our trade-in for a spin. Clint and I sat in that office and watched the guy try to back out from the parking lot, listening to the car revving and not going anywhere and laughed until our stomachs hurt. They came in and told us we couldn't get the loan and I swear that as we tried to back out, all the people who worked there were sitting at the window to see if we would be able to back away. It was so funny! Clint did his little jiggle to the gear shift and away we went like nothing was wrong.Needless to say, we didn't trade in that time, but a few months later, we were able to get a loan at 19% interest... gulp. I'm so glad those days are over for us!

Another time when we were living in Hawaii- we were trying to buy a van and it took 6 hours in the car place. We were so frustrated with them, but they kept making us wait an hour before they could come back with our next "offer". Once, it was actually higher than the previous offer. I don't know why we didn't just leave at that point, but I really do hate shopping for cars.

I love our new one though!