How (NOT) to sell me a car

[bigbearyfairy]

My car's getting quite a few miles on it, and for a couple of months now, I've been trying to determine its replacement. Chances are very good that I'll replace the 2001 Taurus with a 2006 Taurus because I can get significantly more car for the money. In fact, for my same car payment, which many consider unheard of, it looks like I'll be able to

Comments

[tycho_anomaly]

The Honda and Toyota dealerships sound like they've taken a leaf from CarMax's book on how to deal with customers. And unless you HAVE to have a new car, I'd highly recommend checking them out.

Happy new year!

[bigbearyfairy]

Oh, I definitely don't have to have a new one; in fact, I prefer to get the benefit of someone else taking the drive it off the lot depreciation. Of course, these days some cars re-sell for so much it's probably better to purchase new... Hondas, for example. In fact, one friend bough a Civic VP a few years ago, drove it for a year, then sold it for more than he paid for it new!

[bear_left]

I was very surprised & pleased with how the Toyota-Scion dealership in Athens worked with me when I bought my xB back in Dec. '04.

[bigbearyfairy]

Cool.

How do you like your xB? A woman ho lives in a townhouse near me bought an xA about a year or so ago, and she loves it. Another friend's brother bought an xB, and loves it. All the owners of Scion I know, love them, but I've read some stuff that makes me have second thoughts.

[bear_left]

I absolutely love it. Let me know what the things you've heard, & I can tell you my experience, for whatever that's worth.

[bigbearyfairy]

Most of my reservations come from the Cars.com site. They say the xB has short seat bottoms, some bounciness at highway speeds, and an engine buzz when accelerating hard. They also said they didn't like the xA's construction quality, though I notice they don't say that about the xB.

Do you have the manual or the automatic? What kind of MPG are you seeing?

[tshawnlong]

This is why I like CarMax. I get very annoyed at the hard-sell and incessant pursuit by some of the dealers. Of course, I'm also not very good at haggling, and I don't have a good sense of the actual value of cars. *shrug*

I'd also suggest you look into hybrids -- we still love Craig's super-gas-efficient Prius, and they have a good variety of hybrids now.

I'm envious of your potential sun-roof. The next car I get will definitely have a sun-roof -- those are great!

[bigbearyfairy]

I've kept hybrids on my radar, but I don't think I can afford one... yet... I'd definitely want to purchase a new one if I did buy a hybrid. We put over 25k on a car per year, and the replacement batteries of hybrids kinda scare me with our amount of usage. Of course, that may be an invalid concern. I'd love to have fuel efficiency, and that's one thing the regular Civic certainly offers.

Another friend of ours purchased a Prius around the time of the film festival last year, and he loves it as far as I know. But I sat in it at the festival, and it seemed a bit narrow. But the head clearance was great!

[shawnsyms]

Have a wonderful birthday, sweetness.
xoxo

Thanks!!!

[bigbearyfairy]

Hey!!

It's so sweet of you to remember.

Today we are Hobbits. :-)

Tim took me to breakfast, then to first lunch, then second lunch, and soon we go to first supper. :-)

(We actually have done stuff other than eat. More details to come.)

Hugs,
Ed