Last Sunday Reia and I went car shopping. I had finally decided that it was too expensive to rent cars and it would be more cost effective for me to just buy a car.
I didn't want to spend too much and so was looking at a used car. Since I spend just around 6 months and am not local, I wanted to buy a fairly recent one that would not give me the heartache of breaking down every few months or weeks or days.
I spoke to a few experts, aka Americans. And this was 1 subject on which there were myriad opinions. Al felt that a car is an investment and I should get a new, all wheel drive, fully loaded. The rationale being the comfort while owning and the value when selling. Bob was of the opinion that if I wanted to get a used car, I should get one from a dealer and not an individual or a used car outlet. His rationale was that although you could expect to pay significantly more, you could rely on what you were getting and the probability of landing a lemon very low. And the final authority. Reia. She had just 1 question, "Can I take it to college ?".
After running all of the zillion opinions and options through an extremely complex algorithm, processed at super-speed by the world's faster computer, aka the brain, we decided to go check out Car Max. The primary reason was that it seemed to be a single place we could check out several cars at one time.
Reia and I had kinda narrowed down to a Nissan Rogue Sports. It was neither a SUV nor a sedan, but had the features of both and was what some called a Crossover. The primary reason was it seemed to be the cheapest car that had an all wheel drive, a nice thing to have in the snow in Connecticut.
At Car Max, the experience was exactly what they claimed in their ads. No pressure sales. In fact, there was no real sales. All questions I had were answered by going to the Car Max website that I had already visited. And the sales person did not seem to know or be able to help us in making a decision. He wasn't even able to explain why a used car was almost as expensive as a new car. A 2014 car was priced at $17,000 and I remember seeing a new car ad for under $20,000. He checked it online, saw i was there and advised me to go buy the new car. I agreed and so Reia and I decided to check that out.
The time was already 3.30 and dealerships closed at 4 on Sundays. We decided to drive to the nearest dealership which happened to be "George Harte Nissan" in West Haven. They were all set to close down when we got there, but were attended to by Tim Roy. He was good. He was a professional. Knew when to push. And when to stop. He gave us a price. What seemed to me to be an obviously larger number, so he could negotiate. I told him I wanted his best price and I would make a decision. He came back with a number that was not Amazing but quite good. The comparable price to the $17,000 was $18,000. And this included a 3 year warranty and all the good stuff that comes with a new car.
It seemed like a great deal. Since it was the end of the year, the dealerships wanted to sell their 2017 model year inventory before the year ended. And Nissan was willing to help them, by giving a few manufacturer discounts as well. And 0% financing. And the dealer was willing to forfeit most if not all of their margins. And Black Friday, the greatest sale event in the US was an opportunity to move cars. Motivated Buyers. Even more Motivated Sellers.
We were sold. And promised to get back the next day. After checking out at least 1 more dealership. Just to make sure we weren't missing anything. I checked out 2 other dealerships. One of them had a similar price. Unfortunately I had a very poor experience. And the other I had a great experience. But a price that was $3,000 more. There was no decision to be made. It made itself.
And then I made a mistake. I spoke again to Al and Bob. And they convinced me that the entry level model is never a good idea. I needed to at the very least get the next model, and the winter package and ... My cheap car just got a whole lot more expensive. And I was sucked in to going with it, because of the "What if they are right?" syndrome.
Yesterday, Reia and I went picked up our new Nissan Rogue. 1 day old and we already love it.
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