Car Shopping in 2006

I'm done car shopping, finally. Over the last few weeks we've been in and out of 6-8 dealerships. I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of stupid sales tactics. In fact, not one salesperson exhibited any of the pushy, lame behaviors so associated with the car business. In every case, they facilitated test drives, answered questions, and let me walk out of of the dealership with little to no pressure to make a deal today.

Yesterday we headed out with a list of Ford Expeditions to look at. After a no-go at the Kia dealership (didn't have the tow package) and a no-go at the Ford dealership (didn't have any used Expeditions at all) we went to an independent dealer that has a lot of high-end 2-3 year old vehicles. We drove 2 Expeditions, and looked at about 6 others. Michelle wasn't feeling the love for any of them. We took a lunch break, and decided to look at the rest of his Expedition stock, then head over to the Dodge dealer to take a 2nd look at Durangos. We drove a Suburban too, but Michelle hated it. The indy guy mentioned he had a 05 Yukon XL at his warehouse that he could have available in about an hour, so we told him to bring it over and we'd come back after the side trip to the Dodge dealer.

Dodge had an 05 Durango with the HEMI, leather everything, DVD and NAV system, basically every option Dodge offers, and only 17K miles. Predictably, Michelle did feel the love for this truck. Also predictably, it was at at the extreme top of my price range. However, when I thought about it in terms of what I was getting for the additional $5000 I was spending, the Dodge made a lot of sense. According to Edmond's.com, I negotiated a deal about $400 under true market value, so I'm pretty happy with the deal.

One place the car business needs to improve though is the after the sale paperwork. We were there about an hour after I shook hands on the deal, and they were not busy. Breck commented that he thought when spending that kind of money, they want to get the money as soon as possible. It is a good point. I had about an hour before I signed anything binding to get buyers remorse.

So now we own a Dodge truck. Add to that the cowboy hat I bought Michelle for Valentine's Day, the fact that I find myself tuning in FM 104.5 (country that rocks) far more often than the rock stations, and of course the horse, and I think the transformation is official.

I've gone country.