ET's Info-Stew

It was due time for getting a new car. Of course when I say new I mean newer. I will NEVER buy a brand new car and lose multiple thousands of dollars when I drive it off the lot. Anyway Jenny is going on a business trip in a couple weeks. Then in November we're leaving Jenny's car in California, which would leave just my piece of junk Sentra. We need a more reliable vehicle. I've been looking at Subaru's for a while because they're all-wheel-drive, which makes sense for winter street driving. And to save money I wanted a smaller sedan version, so I found that I wanted the Impreza.

So in the last couple days Jenny convinced me it's time for a new car, so I started looking. I didn't prepare as well as I had in previous purchases. I never got financing set up. I never figured out how much insurance would be, and I never figured out the blue-book values. So we were at somewhat of a disadvantage. I found a couple of places selling Subaru Imprezas but left the house early this afternoon with only one to look at. None of the others seemed to be a decent value (considering condition, aesthetics, and mileage). Armed with a clean Carfax I felt prepared to give the story that we had 5.25% financing set up and prepared to leave the dealership without a car.

When we got there I did a test drive. Unlike those cheezy commercials, I didn't have love at first sight. It drove great, looked great, and everything you'd expect from a newer car. But having been in many many rental cars in the last couple years it wasn't anything spectacular. Afterward we stepped inside to talk finances. The guy was very obviously trying to make me feel that the Internet price was a $4,000 discount off the sticker price so that I was getting a spectacular deal. When it came to talking price, he wouldn't budge. He also said that he couldn't get us a better deal than my fake 5.25%. Jenny and I even left to go get lunch (because leaving the dealership is the biggest move a buyer can make) but still no go.

An interesting side-story is that the dude was trying to do anything to get us to come back, like let us take a loaner out to lunch, let us take the Subaru out, giving me the keys and even giving me his license plate so we wouldn't get pulled over. At lunch Jenny and I tried to come up with some way to deal our bluff about having financing set up, which backfired on us. Fortunately dealerships' primary concern is to get you out of the door in the car and worry about financing later. When we came back we signed papers and went on our way.

It's a pearl-blue 2008 Subaru Impreza with just under 15k miles on it. I joked with Jenny about putting a large white bronco on the side, some orange stripes and a football helmet face mask on it so that it could be the Bronco-mobile. I don't think she liked the idea so much. She threatened to put a Raiders bumper sticker on it if I did that.