Safety First?

After sincere hesitation, I accompanied a friend to a car dealership yesterday as she attempted to buy her first car new car. If you know me, you know the car dealership is no stranger to me. Already on my 5th, I decided it was my duty to apply my haggling expertise to her purchase.

Let me preface by saying that this car purchasing virgin was completely unaware of what goes on during the process. She thought that buying a car was just like buying a radio. You pick a model, a color, find a salesperson to pull it around for you, and voila! Proud owner. And because she already knew what she wanted (without test driving may I add) she was convinced that this had to be the way it was. I tried my hardest to assure her that this was not the case.

We walked in to R&H Toyota around 5:30pm. In about 4.3 seconds, we had a salesman whose name for the life of me I can't remember right now. Except that his last name was Yingling. Kinda sounds like a beer, doesn't it?

Anyway, I had been named the vocalist for the majority of the sale. Wanting nothing to do with the sale except for receiving the keys in the end, my friend passed the torch on to me. So, I spoke the words I'd practiced (not really) in the car. "Hi, my friend wants to buy a Scion xA. Neutral color of some kind, base model, automatic transmission. She already got a price at Russell. If you can match it, she wants to buy it here, today."

Yingling took us outside and showed us her dream car. Except. Stick. When Ying asked what the problem with stick was, my friend replied with "Nothing, except I don't want to drive one where there are any other cars around." Clever. I liked it. Yingling, however, looked puzzled.

Once we explained that she meant "NO" we ended up at his desk. Because the manual was the only Scion xA on the lot, we went back to play with pricing, and decided to worry about the actual car later. This being Yingling's brilliant idea.

With Toyota's pure pricing (similar to Saturn's no haggling) the pricing seemed easy. So from here you'd think, "YES! This IS like buying a radio!." But no. At just past 6, we were no where near finished.

Producing a list of cars available was the next step. While he was doing this, I had a moment of deja vu and realized it was because I had briefly worked at R&H Toyota myself. And by briefly, I mean maybe one month, and I'm pretty sure I just stopped showing up after I tried to call out sick one day and they told me no. I decided not to mention this part to Yingling.

There were 5 cars available. 3 white, standard, no side airbags. One silver, standard, no side airbags. One black, standard, with side airbags...for for $650 more. As salesmen always do, he tried an upsell. Side airbags perhaps? Well, yes we thought. Of course. Upsell accepted!

This turned out to be a very bad idea on Mr. Yingling's part...

After literally making the sale, running the credit card for the additional amount over the check that had already been prepared (courtesy of eloans.com) he THEN decides to call the dealer that had the black car available to get the remaining details and vin # to secure the sale.

To everyone's disappointment (Jessie's, because she wanted it, me because I was ready to move on to sushi, and Yingling's because he's the money hungry salesman) the car was not actually the price he quoted. Said dealer had added quite a few aftermarket parts that they were unwilling to negotiate on and/or remove. The perfect car had vanished right before our eyes.

And, my non-picky friend was a little pickier than anticipated. Now she wanted the side airbags. And she did NOT want white. And in a 500 mile radius, the only cars with the exact options were all, surprisingly, white.

Now she had to decide...safety before color, or vice versa? Knowing that I chose a sunroof over side airbags 3 years ago (sorry back seat passengers) I told her she shouldn't buy a car that's a color she hates. She shook her head, glared at Ying, and said "But he convinced me that side airbags were a good idea, and now I want them."

Playing devil's advocate, and as a lover of white cars myself, I tried to assist Yingling in the sale of the white car. But, no luck. She doesn't want white. Sigh.

At 8:45 (that's right, more than three hours later) we left so she could sleep on it.

That said, I don't understand why buying a car ISN'T like buying a radio. Why are car salesman so shady? Every time they say they're going to talk to their sales manager, I am tempted to follow them on the smoke break I know they're taking so I can catch them in a lie. I bet I'd have some prime haggling opportunities there!

And isn't it sad that I can spend three hours with someone and not even remember their name after? Maybe it was all the Yingling...