Helping my mom buy a car.... part 2

At the end of our first marathon day of test driving cars, she decided on the KIA at what she thought was $30,700.00 before taxes and fees because that was the price on the window of the car... On the front window actually... what we were told was the "Labor Day weekend" price.

But when she called the dealership back and told her she wanted it, they told her is was $32,500.00 and they were going to knock it down to $31,500.00 instead to cut my mom a break. When she asked why it was a grand OVER what she was told, they merely told her that the "window price" was the price if she qualified for every discount they gave (military, student grad, owned a certain car type, etc)...

Needless to say, she was a little peeved and so was I.

They flat out lied to all 3 of us (my mom, my husband, and I) about the price of the car and tried to bait and switch her out of more money. So what did my mom do? She told them she didn't appreciate their business measures and that unless they gave it to her for $30,700 they just lost a huge commission cause she'd walk away on the principle of the matter... and they didn't budge.

What stunk even more was the fact that my mom really liked that car and had convinced herself it was the car FOR her and that all other cars made her feel like she was "settling" for less...

At this point I told her that she should take another look at the Camry Hybrid (the cheapest of her top 3 since at least something she'd save gas money on). We caught the sales man as he was leaving for the day but he stuck around so we could drive it again... and he showed us a regular new Camry that was all tricked out with leather, a sun roof, and GPS navigation. My mom perked up a little bit after that and went home to sleep on it all.

Then Lexus called her and told her she could borrow the car for 4 hours and drive it around tomorrow...

Thankfully she decided to wait till I got off work to go down to the Lexus dealership (despite the fact that a guy offered to send a car to her home to pick her up since she wasn't trading a car in)... and here's the interesting part. My mom wanted my husbands and my opinion of what she should do... and we gave it to her and convinced her not to buy the Lexus...

How did we do that?

• I asked her why would someone give back an almost new Lexus with only 20,000 miles on it... Keith pointed out that it was probably a lease contract so the person didn't take care of it.
• We then pointed out that they CERTIFIED it when it still fell under its original warranty... that's not something they had to do (as the sales man pointed out) so we asked WHY would they go out of their way to do it... probably because they had to fix a bunch of stuff to get it sell-able again and since it wasn't much work more, they just certified it.
• Then we talked about how it was USED and she could spend less for a new car with similar features.
• We pointed out how it wasn't a Hybrid...
• how it was more expensive to insure since it was a Lexus...
• how much smaller the trunk was...
• and for good measure we brought up the fact that she works at a mall with no safe place to park it.

So she called the man and told him she wasn't going to get it. He tried to talk her into coming down and driving it again, but she said no...

Then my husband took my phone and called a different KIA dealership, explained what happened there, and asked if they would give my mom the car of her dreams for $30,700.00 Three phone calls later (2 of which were from me talking about how its a recession, and how we have a heavy down payment and needed only low term financing for the balance, and how we'd be willing to drive all the way out of our way for it and would love to buy it from them since they were "honest" and "reliable"...), & they caved.

My mom was going to get the car she wanted at the price she wanted...

The new car would come with a 5 year bumper to bumper and a 10 year power train warranty and 2 free oil changes and she'd save money on gas since it was a hybrid... and it was her dream luxury car with everything and then some on it...

So we drove all the way out to disneyland to go get it... It was from a smaller dealership that was less flashy then the one we went to in the OC... It had rained that morning and the black car had a bit of dust on it... and when the gal opened the door so my mom could have one more test drive in it, she started talking about how she didn't like the interior so much since it wasn't solid black...

and walked away...

Apparently without the flashy sales lady, and the nice big dealership, the car just didn't "shine" that much... It didn't feel "Luxury" and she didn't want to buy it anymore...



Maybe, just maybe she's realizing that a car is just a car...