DMGAttempted Car Purchase
Well, I thought it was going to happen. I test-drove four cars yesterday: The Subaru Impreza, the Honda Fit, the Honda Civic SI, and the Toyota Prius II.
I'd already driven a base model Civic, a Mazda Mazda3 hatchback, and ridden in a Civic Hybrid, so my plan was for these four test drives to fill in the gaps and get me ready to pick a new car.
At the end of the day, I had my top three:
- Subaru Impreza
- Mazda Mazda3
- Honda Civic (base model, not the SI)
The Impreza has pretty hidious gas mileage, but won handily on fit & finish, ride, and power. And If I could get an excellent deal, it would still be a good choice. But only if I could get an excellent deal.
So today I called and made an offer on the Impreza. After an hour or two of phone calls, the salesman and I were really close to a deal: $4k for my trade-in, $3k in cash, and he wanted $225/mo for 60 mos.
But, he said, if he could get a look at my Jetta, he might be able to get me more than $4k for it, and we'd be sitting pretty at $3k down, plus trade-in, and $200/mo for 60 mos.
Unfortunately, when I got there, everything went to hell. The original salesman handed me off to a colleague whose initial offer was $375/mo for 72 mos. Not even in the ballpark. I explained where the phone negotiations had left off. I explained that I thought we were close to a deal at $200 for 60 mos.
Nothing worked. Their final try-to-get-it-done offer as my girlfriend and I were driving away: $7k down + $275/mo for 72 months.
That's a total of $26800 for a car with an MSRP of just over $18k. My credit isn't great, but even at the APR they quoted me, that number just plain doesn't add up.
So, I'll see what I can find online, and I'll start working on getting myself a Mazda3, which is probably the better choice anyway: cheaper, more reliable, with far better fuel efficiency.
To Be Continued...