New car advice

[genlock]

CGarison is an accountant.
He has counted all the beans.
Makes sense.

[Hoosier Daddy]

CGarison is an accountant.
He has counted all the beans.
Makes sense.

I remember him when he was KYJeepster.

[AmpedNow]

Okay. You guys have convinced me to keep the "clunker" for awhile and save more money... I had a moment of second thoughts this weekend and went back to the dealership while they were closed. The car I test drove was nowhere to be seen, anyway.

You may find the feature article on Edmunds interesting: Confessions of a Car Salesman. It's lengthy, but very amusing... It will make you second guess ever buying a car from a dealership again.

[Arp2]

...went back to the dealership while they were closed. The car I test drove was nowhere to be seen, anyway.

Your salesman may have had it detailed for delivery and be keeping it inside for you!

[cgarison]

CGarison is an accountant.
He has counted all the beans.
Makes sense.

I remember him when he was KYJeepster.

You have to remind me of how much I want one of the new 4 Door Wranglers. One Jeep to replace the Cherokee (Totaled in Mayfair (Northeast Philly) on Oct. 7, 2005) and the Wrangler (Totaled at Fannin Lincoln-Mercury by the shop manager Jan 2, 2004 minutes after signing the paper to purchase the Grand Marquis) would be so nice. The only issue is that two of my best friends in Philly just bought 2008 4 door Wranglers last fall and both of them are suffering with sub 15 MPG performance while I have soft footed my GranMa to 23 MPG avg in mixed city/highway driving. I am (somewhat) glad that I did not take the plunge last year in November and trade for a really nice Wrangler I found at the Jeep dealer in Huntington.

What is sad, from what I can tell in research for my next car, the LeSabre has been replaced by the older car buying demographic by the Cadillac CTS which now has one of the lowest insurance rates of cars in the marketplace (beating the Lucerne and Deville/DTS). Based on my (cheapo-beancounting) calculations, I would get the best bang for my car buying dollar by purchasing a 2 year old CTS (with the small V6) in another 18 months rather than purchasing a Wrangler or another GranMa. Plus the General has high quality marks and the CTS is getting great reviews. Second in bean counting bang for the buck is another Mercury Grand Marquis, but I don't think I want another after I put another 50K miles on mine (currently has 99,889 miles).

Although, my old school Mopar loving heart skips a beat for the thought of the 2009 Challenger in the late 60's shade of metallic blue with a Hemi and the addition of a white rally stripe down the side that follows the beltline of the car like the one on the 1972 Barracudas and Challengers.

[cgarison]

You may find the feature article on Edmunds interesting: Confessions of a Car Salesman. It's lengthy, but very amusing... It will make you second guess ever buying a car from a dealership again.

FWIW: I walked out of Moore Auto Mall in Williamson, WV with a great deal on my Jeep Wrangler. With that said, I can stand up to any car salesman in a battle for my dollar.

[Lester]

You may find the feature article on Edmunds interesting: Confessions of a Car Salesman. It's lengthy, but very amusing... It will make you second guess ever buying a car from a dealership again.

EXCELLENT read. I go back to it every time I think about going to a car lot.

[cgarison]

The concept of "sales" and "financing" tricks still elude me. But I have to admit that when I bought my Wrangler, I had my Compaq Armada 7800 on the desk of the financing guru crunching numbers in Excel as they were put down in front of me. When I bought my Grand Marquis, I had my Palm Tungsten E (Retired last Friday and replaced with and HTC/AT&T Tilt) crunching numbers on a Palm OS based Excel clone.

Of course, I bought the Tilt because it had Windows Mobile Office w/ Excel pre-installed. I am still ready to purchase a car.

The only time I walked into a financing deal without a computer/number crunching device was when I bought my house in Sept. 2000 and the bank screwed me royally charging me an extra 1.5% on my mortgage. I luckily refinanced 1 year later and went from 9.5% to 5%.

[genlock]

I have a K&E Log-LOg Duplex Vector and a Decilon.

[AmpedNow]

...went back to the dealership while they were closed. The car I test drove was nowhere to be seen, anyway.

Your salesman may have had it detailed for delivery and be keeping it inside for you!

Heh. You think?

He called me yesterday. I didn't answer...