I Bought A Car!

Heads Up: This is not about running. It's about the very very annoying and frustrating process of buying a car. Mainly I felt like I wanted to document the process and also thought maybe some of the info would help someone out in the future, so, enjoy! Or don't! I'll get back to run-blogging soon enough, promise. :)

Let us journey back in time to spring 2005: Snoop Dogg and Kelly Clarkson on our first-generation iPods, pseudo-useless internet on our dumb phones, and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" playing on endless repeat on the radio. We watched How I Met Your Mother and Bones on the actual TV at the actual times they aired; The 40-Year Old Virgin made us laugh, Brokeback Mountain made us cry, and Elektra made us question Jennifer Garner's judgment in hairstyles (just say no to the bangs, Jen).

I had also just finished grad school and secured my first grown-up job making real grown-up money (sort of), and the first thing I did once I got that offer letter was ride my bike to the local Honda dealership to buy a 2005 Civic Hybrid. I'd hoped to buy a used one but hybrids were still pretty new then and I couldn't find one near me, so I ended up buying a new one. I had a lot of environmental guilt and since driving daily was not going to be optional, that 43-48 mpg seemed like a solid way to do make at least some kind of effort.

Here is how buying that car went down:

Car salesman: Hello, how can we help you?
Me: I would like to buy a Civic Hybrid.
Car salesman: Excellent choice! That will be $xx,xxx.
Me: GREAT where do I sign.
Car salesman: *blinkblink* Oh...Ohkay then!

I even paid for the extra warranty and the car alarm because, well, those things sounded important and I was young and dumb and knew nothing about buying cars. Palo Alto Honda dealership, you are welcome.

Fast forward to this past January when some asshat rear-ended me on the freeway going like 90 mph and then just drove off, totalling my sweet little 13.5-year-old hybrid:

RUDE.

This past year I've been living the car-free life, thanks mostly to the fact that Don barely drove his and good friends had a car they hadn't been using. (Near-daily driving: Still not optional for me!) But then I had to give my friends' car back, and Don's was totaled too and he had to get a new one, and his new lease only allows a limited amount of mileage which is rather incompatible with my 50+-mile-a-day commute. I had always intended to buy another car eventually and good deals can be easier to come by near the end of the year around the holidays, so this seemed like the right time.

I'd decided a while back that after my hybrid died I would almost certainly get an electric car, especially now that we have a garage for installing a charger. I still drive a lot, and the environmentally conscious part of me always felt a little guilty about the miles I was regularly cranking out even in my super-efficient hybrid. That said, I'd planned to drive that car for a while longer & had hoped by the time I needed something new there would be more affordable electric options. A Tesla is well out of my price range (also I don't think one will fit in our garage), and the other available electrics aren't a lot better.

But, there is a California rebate on electric cars right now, and a federal tax credit, so between that and a little raise I got this year, I felt like we could make enough of a down payment to make it reasonable. So I started my research and ultimately decided on the Chevy Bolt.

I found Jen's post on new car buying very helpful as a starting point. To summarize, the best way to start is by doing all your research ahead of time--decide exactly what you want, down to the colors and options and everything--before you ever talk to a dealer. Sure, if you're deciding between a few different cars, go test drive them, but don't get sucked into dealer tricks to get you to buy something the same day.

Once you've decided on exactly the car you want, do your price research. Use Edmunds.com or CarGuru.com or similar to get the MSRP, invoice, and true market value prices for exactly the car you want, including color and options.

• MSRP = the sticker price you should never ever pay **coughcoughlikeIdidin2005coughcough**
• Invoice price = a somewhat lower price that you should STILL never pay unless the car you want is super rare and you are absolutely obsessed, or if you have to buy a car at a specific point in time and can't really wait for big sales or end of the month/year. Invoice is kinda/sorta/roughly what the dealer pays for the car except not really, for reasons you can read about more on the internet if you are so inclined.
• True market value = what people in your market are generally paying for the exact car you want. If you can get a price around this number, you know you've gotten a pretty decent deal or at least haven't gotten screwed.

After some internet research, I decided I wanted a Chevy Bolt LT (ie, not Premier/fancy version) in Cajun Red, with the Driver Confidence 1 and DC Fast Charging packages. (There is a Driver Confidence 2 package, but it seemed like overkill to me for the extra money.)

Other key info that I learned in my research:

• The best time to buy a car is at the end of a month or, even better, close to the end of a year. Dealers have quotas they have to meet and at these times they are VERY motivated to make a deal with you.
• Dealers don't care as much about what price they sell the car for as you might think. They make most of their money off of financing, services, and manufacturer volume bonuses, not car sales, so they literally CAN sell cars at *technically* what they paid for them or even less and still make money in the long run.
• You have no freakin' *idea* how motivated dealers are to sell you a car. No. Freakin'. IDEA. It is so hard and they have to sell so many and you as the buyer have SO MUCH MORE POWER than you think. That thing you think is crazy to ask for? ASK FOR IT! Don't be shy. The worst they can say is no.

In October Don & I went to a large dealership fairly close to home to test drive a Bolt and make sure it would fit in our tiny garage with his new car. (It did--just barely!) The salesperson there, A, was clearly super disappointed we weren't going to buy that day, but we told him we'd probably be back in a few weeks.

I started actively trying to make a deal the Monday before Thanksgiving. I knew things would take some time so by the time I bought the car it would be towards the end of the month, as well as the year, and lots of dealers also had Black Friday incentives going on and I figured that would work in my favor as well. (It also turned out that Costco was running a big rebate on GM cars, so, win!)

I started by basically copying the email that Jen used and sending it to every Chevy dealer within a 100 mile radius of my house (about 10-12, I forget), except for Large Nearby Dealership where we did the test drive, for strategic reasons. Then I started a spreadsheet where I listed the dealership, their initial quote, and any notes.

Sure enough, the first offer I got was nearly $3000 below invoice. I collected a handful of quotes, then took the lowest one and went back to all the others with it and basically said, "Thanks for getting back to me! Is that your best offer? I have another quote for this car for $xx,xxx so just wanted to check." Sure enough a bunch of them dropped their offer even further. By the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I had a quote from a not-crazy-distant dealer that was over $4,000 below invoice. I figured this was probably the best I was going to do because the drops started to get smaller and smaller, and two or three dealers actually told me that price was crazy and they could not match it.

At this point, I texted A at Large Nearby Dealership saying that I had this offer but would prefer to buy from him since he did the test drive for us (and was much closer to home) if he could match the price, hoping that I'd have a car by that evening.

Alas, A did not respond, and in the meantime I kept getting tons of desperate follow-up emails from all the other dealers I'd been emailing with. I didn't expect anyone to respond to me on Thursday but by Saturday morning I still had no response from A (even after emailing and calling the dealership directly), which I found surprising.

At that point, I went back to another dealer that said they had the car I wanted for the lowest quoted price and told him he had a deal, & scheduled to drive there & get the car at noon the next day (Sunday). Second choice dealer says, "Great! I'll grab it & put it on the charger now."

Now, friends.....this is where the ass-hattery starts. Or, rather, where my naivete about the car-buying world (particularly at a time of year when people are buying a lot of cars) starts to cause problems.

The next morning just as we are about to leave for Second Choice Dealer, he emails to say, "Hey I don't have a red one, will the blue or gray one work?"

And I absolutely lose my shit. I email him back that this is not what we agreed on and I want the red one. When I bought my Honda I compromised on the color because they didn't have the one I really wanted, and this time I'd decided that for this kind of large purchase I was damned well getting the color I wanted. His response was that they sold the red one that morning, sorry, let him know if I wanted one of the others.

So that was lesson one. When someone tells you they have a car, and you agree on a price & tell them they've got a deal, they are not saving it for you. If someone else walks in later that day and makes an offer, they are selling that car. You have no car until you are actually at the dealership and give someone money.

At that point I start going back to other deals I'd kind of kept hanging, asking them if they have the car. One says he'll go confirm, and later comes back that oops, he was mistaken, it doesn't have one of the options I want, is that okay? (Answer: No, it isn't.)

And then, out of the blue, A from Large Nearby Dealership finally texts back that sorry, he was out of town for the holiday and just saw this. Yes, they had the car, but the best they could do was $300 higher than my lowest quote.

Great, I say! Saving me an hour plus of driving is definitely worth $300.

It's a 2018, he says, but with the same options, their last red 2018, which is why they can give it to me at such a crazy price.

It's okay, I assure him! (I'd originally looked at '18s because I thought they would be cheaper, but that turned out to not really be the case and a lot of places were running out of '18s, so I asked for quotes on '19s instead.) Can you hold it for us? We'll be there in 30 minutes!

No promises, he says; someone else is looking at it right now.

So, we book it to the dealership. And sure enough, by the time we get there, someone else is driving off with it.

A meets us and says, NBD, I have another 2018 I can give you at the same price, it's a white one.

NOT INTERESTED, I tell him firmly. RED.

So he goes to chat with a manager and we take a seat in a cubicle. I see that I have an email from Second Choice Dealership, saying maybe they can get one from a sister dealership, am I interested, just let him know. So I start trying to get in touch with him while A is talking to the manager.

When A comes back, he says that the manager has agreed to honor the price he quoted for a 2019. He says they've found one they can get that meets my requirements, but it will take them about a week to get it. But here it is, on paper, VIN number and everything.

Not a problem! I assure him. A week is fine.

So here is lesson number 2: Depending on the car you want and how picky you are about color and options, dealers may not have a bunch of them just sitting around. They get what they get in a shipment, and it turns out that a) they still don't make a ton of Bolts, b) they REALLY don't make a ton of red ones, and c) any particular combination of options makes a particular car even rarer.

Lesson number 3: Dealers are desperate to sell the cars they have on the lot right now, and they figure that even if they don't have exactly what you want or don't have it anymore by the time you arrive, once you're there, they stand a chance of sweet-talking you into taking something they DO have.

And, lesson number 4: Do not talk about down payments or financing or ANYTHING else until you know the bottom line price you're getting. A wanted to know how much we'd put down; I told him we weren't talking about that until he showed me a bottom-line out-the-door number. So he went and got one, and after that we agreed on a down payment.

"We'll have you do a deposit today so that no one else gets your car," he says, so we do. He puts everything in a folder and tells us he'll be in touch.

Fast forward six days. The following Saturday I get a text from A saying, "Call me, I have good news!" I call him and he says they've had some red ones come in, when can we come in and get one? We agree on 11 the next morning, and at 11 Don and I roll up, and A meets us and points to a red Bolt on the charger.

There's the car right there! he says, Let's take a look.

Except it's not. I'd asked for the fast charging option, and this one does not have it. I ask him what happened to the one we saw on paper a week ago, the one we'd paid a deposit on "So no one else would get our car." Oops, it sold. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But why do you want the fast charging anyway? he starts to ask, but at that point I am so close to losing my shit I can barely see straight. This is not what we agreed on.

He says he thinks he has one more on the lot with fast charging, so we walk over. It does, but it's missing the driver confidence package I asked for. Again, I tell him, this is not what we agreed on. You took our money; you owe us the car you showed us on paper.

Some excuses about how this is what they've got, we can take either one today, they just don't make that many of these cars in this color with these options, the closest ones might be hundreds of miles away, etc. But I'm absolutely not having it. The car we gave you a deposit on or GTFO.

A goes to talk to his manager while Don & I try to calm down in a cubicle. After a while he comes back and declares it's all his fault, he screwed up, he understands if we want to go somewhere else. But if we're willing to wait just a few more days, he will get the car we want and personally drive it to our house so we can see it's the car we put down the deposit for.

Dude, I don't need you to drive it to my house; I just need you to get the car you said you could get us, that we paid you money for, and then not lie to me about having it. That is literally all.

He says he can get it by Wednesday. I tell him I'm leaving town Thursday morning, so Wednesday is good.

Fast forward to Wednesday; I have no idea what the plan is or what to expect (though in retrospect, I should have asked at the time). I text A earlier in the day asking for some notice if possible, since Don & I are working and it would help us to be able to plan the day. He says the car is coming and he will keep me updated. We are supposed to leave for karate around 6:30, but at 6:30 there is no still no update, so I text again. He says the car should arrive in about 30 minutes. (So, clearly we are not going to karate.)

We give it an hour and then just drive over, getting to the dealer about 10 minutes before they close. We're met by J, who says that A had to leave but he knows about our car. We sit in the dreaded cubicle again, and after a few minutes J brings us a new sheet with a different price than the one we agreed on with A.

I can't tell you how close I am to losing my shit at this point. Again.

See but the incentives have changed from then to today, he says. See, but we couldn't find one with just the driver confidence 1 package and the fast charging; this one also has driver confidence 2, so it's more expensive.

Not my problem, I insist. I am so, so completely out of f***s to give at this point. We gave you money for a specific car that you told us you could get, which we would not have done if we knew that wasn't the case. If you told us you could get us the car we want but now you can't, that is not our problem; it's yours.

I show him the number again and basically say, "I will buy that car from you right now but I am not paying a penny more than this number right here. Make it happen or GTFO."

So, J goes to talk to the manager. When he returns, he tells us about how this is already such an amazing deal they are giving us, and now this is an even BETTER car, so it's an even MORE amazing deal. So they SHOULDN'T give us the old agreed-on price, but since the manager knows we haven't had the greatest experience, they are going to honor the old price for this EVEN BETTER car, IF we'll agree to give them the top rating in the Chevy survey when we get it.

DONE AND DONE! I tell him. Absolutely no f***s. MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Of course then we have to go to finance. Which, all things considered, was a pretty quick and painless process, most likely because at that point they'd been closed for over an hour and I'm sure everyone just wanted to get this done and go home. The nice thing about Chevy is that instead of a slew of extra warranty/package options, there's only two. The finance guy described them super quickly, we said no just as quickly, and he said GREAT! and just moved on with the rest of the paperwork.

(Also, WOW, the speed at which this man could juggle paperwork. A true artiste.)

Lesson 5, re: the finance part: Everything is negotiable, even financing. Even if you think you're going to finance through the dealer, you should 100% shop around to see what is the lowest rate you can get for the term of loan that you want, and if the dealer gives you a higher number, ask them to match it. Maybe they can't, but at least you'll have the best info.

(Also beware if you get a 0% financing deal....It might mean they really got you on the price.)

I have stellar credit (like, I didn't even know the numbers went as high as the number they showed me) so I was disappointed that the dealer's rate was 4.9%. My credit union, on the other hand, offered 4.25%, and another bank offered 3.7%. When I talked to my credit union on the phone, it turned out there were some extra discounts I was eligible for which took my rate down to 3.25%. The dealer couldn't match this, so we did a CUDL loan with my credit union through the dealer.

So, there you go!

10pm and I am EXHAUSTED, and also still have to go finish packing for a 9am plane. Still pretty happy, though.

After 16 days, untold hours of internet research about every aspect of new car buying, and EVEN MORE hours and frustration spent communicating with and sitting at dealerships, I finally had an even better car than the one I'd originally asked for quotes on, at nearly $5,000 below invoice price and at least $1,000 below true market value depending on where you look it up. I wouldn't wish what we had to go through on *anyone*, but I can't say I'm not pleased with the final outcome. :)