Signs of  assimilation back into American culture or just bowing to the pressure of necessity here in the U.S.: last week we bought a new-to-us used car. As Chris has said, that’s a nice short sentence, but our adventure was not so short. We got to the Toyota dealer’s about 1:30 last Tuesday and left about 6:30. In those 5 hours, we looked at one car, looked for another car, test drove a third car, and wound up buying a fourth car.

Now, we had done our homework, which was even easier in some sense than the last time we bought a car on our own, in 1994. [BTW, for those of you who might remember, yes, we did buy a pre-owned car in 2004 before we moved to Canada, but that time my colleague E— did all the legwork and research, so all we had to do was show up for the test drive and sign the check. Since we didn’t own a car in Europe, it really has been since 1994 since the last time Chris and i had to buy a car on our own].

But I think I’ve digressed. So nowadays dealers have inventory online, and therefore we knew from the website that the Toyota dealer down the road here in Melbourne had two “Certified Pre-owned” Corollas in our price range. Therefore, the sales guy didn’t have to sell us on anything when we got there, he just needed to find the car on the lot,  point out the features and go for a test ride. Should have been simple, no?

However, one of the complications was that one of the cars from the website wasn’t available; we drove the first car around the lot with our salesman, J—, looking for it, but we couldn’t find it. Then his manager offered a more expensive one newer 2014 model for the same price as the missing one. So that’s the one we test drove. We liked it and were ready to get it. There wasn’t really any negotiation, since they had already reduced the price. We tried one small tactic, to no avail, but we weren’t unhappy with paying the price at that point.

But then the hardest part was  understanding the warranty and the “Certified Pre-owned” part. We thought we understood things from the website, but apparently we didn’t.

Or the dealer does things differently.

Or something.

Anyway, in the end, despite our best efforts plus the seeming best efforts of J—, our sales guy, and also of J—’s manager, when it came time to sign the final paperwork, and we were talking with the finance guy, it turned out that what we thought the included warranty wasn’t what they thought, and it would cost $450 to get that extra warranty. Argh.

The head manager was brought in and said that he was sorry for the misunderstanding, but there wasn’t anything he could do to make up for it. He offered to give us some time to talk it over, and he seemed willing to let us go away without buying anything. We’d now invested 4 hours in the process, and called the insurance company to get the car insured. So, we had almost decided to take it anyway, without the extra warranty, when the manager came back with a new deal. This time, they offered another car, exactly the same as the one we were about to buy, with lower mileage on it, which we could have for the same price + $500 AND get more of a warranty than on the first one (which was really the third one, i.e. the one we were almost about to buy). This new offer meant they would get a little bit more money from us, but we would get a slightly nicer car and the better warranty.

Was it a great offer? Was it a better offer?  Not sure. Whatever the case, it was in the end what we decided to do. I’ll concede it was probably not the best negotiating strategy to just take that offer. But the alternative would have been at least one all-day trip to Orlando, with no guarantee of doing any better (though we might have, of course, but we might not have, as we’re easily worn out by the hours-long process). Ah well. At the time it seemed like the best option was to take the offer of the fourth car.

Now of course, you might think the saga ended there. Except I think I did mention that we’d already called the insurance company to get that almost-purchased car insured because we were all set to buy it. That process had taken a very loooooong time,  due to the insurance agent being out of the office in the middle of afternoon, plus their computer system not working, plus the fax with the information not coming in to the car dealer in a timely manner, etc., etc. That part of the original process alone took over an hour.

So,  when we decided to switch cars, we had to do it all over again. But by now the office was closed, so I had to call another number and explain everything again to a new person who wasn’t a local agent who knew what the history had been. That took a while and several phone calls.

Then we had wait for the fax or email with the insurance card to come through. Lots of waiting. Fortunately, though, the second time was a tad bit faster in the end. Whew.

Overall, we can’t complain too much, really,  since we got everything done in one day, and we got to return the rental car and save a week’s worth of rental + insurance on that.

Of course, I can complain a teeny bit about the fact that the dealer didn’t put gas in the car – it was on “Empty” when Chris drove it off the lot, so his first stop was necessarily the gas station down the block. Really? Not even a gallon or two of gas when you’ve just spent thousands on a car? Sheesh. How cheap can you get. But at least there were enough fumes or something to get to the gas station. I guess that counts for something.

Anyway,  we now have a clean car to drive that even smells a bit like a new car (I assume they have a scent they pump in for that).  And now you know the saga of our 2014 Toyota Corolla LE.

Photos are below — see what you think.  BTW, in photo #3,  those squares are not inside the car. In fact, that’s a reflection of the building in which we’re currently staying.

Enjoy.

Toyota Corolla #1

Toyota Corolla #2

Toyota Corolla #3