I hate car dealers. I hate car dealers. I really, really hate car dealers. I'm currently in hell. Is it going poorly for you too?
I made it through the other side finally yesterday.
Over the last month plus I’ve had to get myself a car and HCette a car. My car buying process went off without much of a hitch because I’ve dealt with the sales guy on four cars for myself over the years, HCette’s dad bought a car from him, and so did my sister’s husband’s parents so there’s some history there to simplify things.
HCettes? Not nearly as simple. Her lease that we have to turn in has a cracked headlight which is making things a lot more difficult as the car WOULD have equity if it wasn’t for that. Luckily the dealer that we have history with and through my negotiations for my car they agreed to take it back without us having to fix the headlight and not have to worry about any other fixes so no extra cost to us.
HCette wants a bigger car now than what we’ve had because it’s hell having to decide if you want a stroller in the car or if you’re going to be able to go grocery shopping. First world problems to the max but hey it’s what HCette wants.
We went into a local dealership the other week knowing that they didn’t have a car with the options that HCette wanted on the lot so had hopes they’d be able to trade for it. We went back and forth before eventually reaching a “deal” that would allow them to go and try and trade for the cars.
That deal consisted of several banks “declining” her due to credit where we eventually just decided to settle on one that they offered that was a couple years longer than what we wanted (knowing we’d just go get our own financing in the meantime). They told my wife what her credit score was at a time where I was driving back and forth to my office as it was right down the street.
They said that they’d let us know in a couple days where the process is at with trying to trade but it might take through the weekend.
Yesterday morning we get a call and the first car they were trying to trade for sold and the second one the other dealership wouldn’t trade.
HCette and I found another local dealership that had common ownership with another dealer that was 50+ miles away that had multiples of the car that she wanted so yesterday we decided to go in to try and see what we could cook up.
Went in and told them what the other “deal” was with a bit of exaggeration to leave some wiggle room knowing that they could just tell us “well did you get the car?” since the other deal was trading and they had some within their footprint. They actually had one on the lot that wasn’t on the website.
They said they’d see what they can do but first let’s check credit and all that.
My wife’s credit score according to them was 70 points higher than the other dealership said (frankly higher than what we even thought it was) and getting an approval at a rate and year length that we were comfortable with and actually better than anything we found for ourselves. It was seamless which was a little jarring. They preceded to hem and haw a little bit on the ask that we presented before eventually breaking down and giving it to us at that price.
We wound up purchasing it yesterday in what in itself was a pretty pain free deal.
It did leave a pretty bad taste in my mouth about the other dealership for seemingly playing some type of game.
Car shopping is such a stressful time where you never know if you’re getting played, getting a good deal, whether words being said are actually true. I hated every second of it. HCette hated it even more than me.
