My New Truck

Well sheesh, has it really been two months since I've posted? Sheesh. Well I bought a new truck yesterday, and the experience was definitely blog worthy.

I got a blue '94 Toyota Pickup 5speed extra cab 2WD 4-cylinder with 211k miles for $2500. I'm pretty happy with it so far. 2500 was what I had budgeted, and despite the high miles I think I got the most I could for my money. I actually found it on autotrader.com, not craigslist surprisingly, it was at beaverton Honda. It was definitely the only vehicle there under 5k and probably only 1 only a handful under 8k. They were asking $3k, which is really quite reasonable for a '94, except for the high miles.

We made a total of five separate trips to their lot.

So Ginny and I mosey over there the first time at about 11:00AM, give it the once over with the salesman, drive it around, and come back and sit down in the dealership. As we are walking away from the truck I mention that I have 23 benjamin's in my pocket that I would like to pay for the truck. The salesman doesnt acknowledge my comment, and this doesn't come up again for a while. He gets our phone number and address, he asks for my social security number and I tell him he doesnt need it. Then the dude disappears for about 15 minutes. Ginny is kinda anxious, she just wants me to buy a rig so we can be done with this.

Then Darryl calls me. He had just bought his plane ticket to come to the wedding, we get to talking about whatever and just as he is explaining to me that he's going back to school, the salesman finally comes back over. But I'm a little bent out of shape that he had me waiting, so I ignore him and I guess he walks away. Darryl is talking to me about how he's going to med school, and that is just blowing my mind. I let him know that I'm kinda in the middle of trying to buy a car waiting for some folks to come back, and then he just goes off on them for making me wait. See, good ole Darryl hasn't led me wrong yet, especially on buying something, or more accurately, waiting.

So I get off the phone after only about a 8 minute conversation, and my sales dude is nowhere to be found again. what the crap. We wait another 5 minutes or so and then I tell Ginny that we're leaving. She isn't convinced that is a good strategy, but darryl and my spider sense were telling me that it's time to go. And amazingly, we successfully walk out without anyone saying a word to us. But they were watching, oh yes, the eye of Sauron is always watching.

Ginny and I hadn't had breakfast, and it's about 1230 so we go to her mom's favorite vietnamese place for lunch. My phone rings in transit, I figure it must be the salesman so I don't answer. Ginny thinks this is ridiculously rude, so before we go in to eat I call him back and say that we'll be back in like a half an hour. I particularly enjoyed that I did have a legitimate excuse, we were hungry, so I can be friendly and not act like I'm playing hardball.

During lunch I realize that 2300 is too low, so we hit the ATM for another 200 before we head back. We there and I really don't want to sit down. They want you to sit down. But I do anyway. Bastards. The same salesman gets his piece of paper out with the 4 squares on it and he's got $2995 written in one of the squares. I tell him that's great, I like the truck, but it's got a lot of miles and I can pay $2300. He hems and haws blah blah blah I'm not really listening because I know he's not the one that can make these kinds of decisions. I tell him 2300 a few more times and he finally goes and gets his manager. Finally. We're making some progress.

The middle manager dude is much more direct. We can look each other in the eye and I know that there's a chance he's not totally full of crap. He tries to pull out blue book numbers and I tell him that won't really help because he gets different numbers than I do. He tells me the truck only had one owner. Blah blah blah. 2300. At this point we stare deeply and authentically into each others eyes. He tells me that he will sell the truck for 3000 this very weekend. I congratulate him for that achievement, but am firm that I cannot pay 3000, I can pay 2300. We reach an impasse and shake hands to leave. As we are walking towards the door, he asks if 200 would do anything for me. Without looking at him or slowing down my path for the door I say that it will not and that I can pay 2500. Exit stage right. I cannot hard the middle manager worked to overemphasize his every word to make it as nice sounding as possible. It was like talking to someone who is consoling you over your dead cat. I'm so sorry, thank you for coming in today, we REALLY appreciate it.

Whatever.

At this point I've moved on mentally. It took 2.5 hours to get to the point where we could have the 5 minute conversation on whether I could buy this truck or not. Honestly I wasnt sure. I had a list of 7 trucks from the internets, this was definitely the one I liked the best but it seemed like a bit of a reach for the 2300 I wanted to spend, and I was already at 2500 and dude was only down to 28. So whatever. I call the one on the list that was only asking 1000, but there's no answer or voicemail. OK fine. Maybe today is not the day.

Ginny and I head to Sears to register. (thats another topic, this one is already way too long) We're looking at mattresses about 2 hours later when the phone rings. Its the master negotiator middle manager dude from beaverton honda. He says that he hasn't sold any cars since I left and wants to know if I'd buy it for 2500. I say sure, I'll be there in about 40 minutes. (knowing it'll be more like 75) Wow. That was fantastic. I guess that's where you have all your bargaining power, when you're lying on a mattress inside Sears. Ginny and I laughed pretty hard. We still took our time and finished up our scanning. I am so done with waiting on these people. I went with Anthony and Keith when they bought their Honda's, and the Man sure made us wait a lot. I will make him wait for me. And if somebody else swoops in and buys my truck, good for them.

Amazingly, when we get back, neither of the two people that have been helping us are around. Are they for real? I mean I don't think they were just making up stuff this time around but still, they could have found someone. We left again. I will not let them make me wait, that is one of the main sources of their power. Just as we are walking in the door to Target, they call me back. This time I turn around immediately and head back and we are able to get r dun. woot. 2500 plus the bs 105 dmv fee that I just dont have the energy to fight over at this point despite carrying cash. 50 electronic filing fee my foot, 55 is legitimate but the rest is bologna.

So in six weeks I'll have the title, and hopefully it will end up being a good rig. (the 5th trip for those counting was because they forgot to take out their key box) But cash is definitely the way to go. Don't let those people make you wait. Props to Darryl for getting me fired up, and to Ginny for coming along for all the drama and keeping me bold.