Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Car shopping...


Pat and I took the kids on a little car shopping excursion yesterday and came home feeling like the salesman tried to drag us through the mud.
We've been talking for months now about the need to get a bigger car. We currently have a Toyota Scion xB and Chevrolet Malibu Classic and both are paid for.
But we knew that once we had Julius we would at some point need a bigger vehicle. That necessity seems to be getting closer as Julius is quickly outgrowing his infant car seat and will soon have to move into something bigger.
Pat took out Savannah's car seat, which transitions from a rear-facing infant seat to a front-facing toddler seat by removing a bar in the back. We bought it for her when she was 11 months old and had to place it forward because it would not fit in the Scion as a rear-facing seat (and all children under a year have to be rear facing).
Since Savannah was close to a year old we just left it front facing, but we don't have that option this time.
Therefore we decided to go out looking at the Ford Flex, a new model that looks like an extended Scion xB. I've never had a lot of luck with Fords, but I think Pat has his heart set on this car so I'm game if he is.
We went to the first dealership and they only had one Ford Flex and it was the top-of-the-line model and WAY out of our price range. The salesman was nice and he gave us his business card after telling us they were hoping to get some basic models in over the next few months.
We then headed north and found another Ford dealership and they didn't have any Flexes so we moved on to Fredericksburg, which is about an hour from our house.
We drove onto the lot and saw three Ford Flex models that were in our price range and Pat walked over to get a saleman's attention so he could take it on a test drive.
Two hours later, and after the salesman was convinced he had found two suckers, we left in the small Scion that brought us there.
Although the sticker price was very close to what we needed, they didn't offer us the Blue Book value on our Scion and said their "best deal" would make our monthly payment $100 more than we needed it to be.
I don't know what kind of math they're using at that dealership, but it doesn't jive with anything I've found online about how much car you can afford for the price you want to pay.
I just came home disgusted by the whole thing and the car salesman has already called once this morning (at 8:45 a.m.) to see if we were ready to make the deal.
I'm hoping Pat will tell him where he can put his "deal".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't give up on the Flex, they are great familiy cars, just find a better dealer. I think the lower trim level models sold first and the high-dollar Limited models are hanging around the lots now.