Adventures In Buying a Car Land

Megan and I bought our first car as a married couple on Saturday. We have been in the market for a new car for about 6 months now, but we put off actually buying one because it's kind of a Big Deal. After I got stuck in the snow in the Camaro, we decided that we should make good on our goal and buy a car.

We knew we wanted a small SUV for their increased cargo capacity and only slightly decreased gas mileage when compared to small cars. Outside of that, though, we didn't have a brand or model that we were particularly fond of. Honda's Element and CRV were obvious contenders, as was the Toyota RAV4, but all three of those vehicles are well outside of our price range. We like Saturn as a brand, but even the Vue is a little over priced for our budget. We didn't want to buy a car older than 2007, and none of those vehicles depreciate fast enough for us to justify being able to afford them. We tossed around the idea of a Mazda Tribute after we rode with Josh last week, but the only one we could find up here was *really* used.

I really don't have brand loyalty other than being adamant about not buying American (Yes, I know Saturn is American, but they actually make *good* cars), so that's how we landed on the Kia. The Sportage handles everything we want to do with a small SUV, has good safety ratings, and most importantly, is in our price range.

We went car shopping on Saturday and it went pretty much the way you would expect it to.

The first dealership had a 2008 program car with 3500 miles (and a four cylinder engine) on it and no previous owners. We did the back and forth in the negotiations and wound up walking out because the sales manager refused to actually give us a deal on the car. He apparently thought that the original "offer" of the sticker price to open negotiations with was very reasonable. Uh... no.

We went to another dealer later in the day to test drive a 2007 four cylinder but barely got around the block in it because it reeked of smoke and had cigarette burns in the seats. Needless to say, we did not buy that one. The same dealer had a 2008 V6 model on the lot and we fell in love with it after taking it for a test drive. Negotiations started with them offering the sticker price... we low balled them which brought out the sales manager. We harped on the fact that it had more miles than the other 2008 and they weren't even giving us that price. Before we walked out the door, I told them we would sign the papers right then for X price. The manager bit and sold us the car. I won't say what we paid, but it is well under retail price and I think we came out really far ahead in the deal.



In the end, we drove away with a better car for a lower price. I'm glad we didn't take that first dealer's offer.



Also, the first salesman called me yesterday morning to find find out if I was still interested. I told him we found another Sportage for a lower price and we are really happy with it. I bet he wishes his manager didn't play that stupid game now, eh?