The Used Car Buying Experience

I posted some initial thoughts the night we purchased our new used vehicle. (Or “pre-owned” as the English-challenged and/or marketing BS-speakers would call it.)

Now that we’ve completed the transaction, I’ve got some more thoughts on the experience. This is the first time I’ve ever bought a used car from a dealer.

Just before I bought my first new car, I learned two very important things: Never deal with salesman, go directly to a the sales manager and always do your research first. When I bought my new Firebird 17 years ago, I did just that. I researched the car I wanted, with exactly the options I wanted. I searched the lots, when they were closed, and found the exact car I was looking for and got the VIN. I researched the dealer and learned what kind of volume they do. I used information available to calculate the true dealer cost of the vehicle (not the one they claim to be their “cost”.) I factored in a small, but fair profit, which was still well below market and then I called the sales manager directly and made a firm offer. He asked if I had talked with any of his salespeople, and when I said I had spoken to no one at his lot, he accepted the offer immediately.

It was probably the easiest money he made that day, and I still got a great deal.

I can’t say we did that with our Hyundai. We weren’t planning to buy a car that evening, and it is a testament to the power of salespeople and the weakness of the human brain that we did. Still, it’s been a good car and we’ve had no complaints. It was a fortunate turn of events for us.

We have been discussing the possibility of purchasing a minivan for some time now. As the kids have gotten bigger, the inadequacies of the Hyundai Sante Fe and Nissan Maxima were becoming apparent. With two child seats in the car, counterintuitive though it may be, only the smaller Nissan could transport our family and one extra passenger. The necessary positioning of the child seats in the Sante Fe placed them too close together for an adult to squeeze between them.

Our idea was to wait until Irene goes back to work next year and the family income improves before taking that step. Circumstances forced our hand this week.

With no budgeted money for a car purchase and hopes fading that we’d ever see any money for the damage to the Maxima, we were really unsure of what to purchase. Should we try to push ahead for the minivan, or fall back to another 4 door sedan for the next year?

Unlike in ’90 when I bought my Firebird, information on cars, new and used, is all over the Internet. We ran price checks and comparisons galore and what we discovered was that minivans of any recent vintage are too bloody expensive – or at least beyond our impromptu budget.

Continuing to search, we discovered a 2003 Toyota Sienna for just under $9,000. While a bit high on the mileage, the Kelly Blue Book put the vehicle at work over $10,000 even in only fair condition. The others were found online typically went for $16,000 and up.

We figured there must be something horribly wrong with the car and, considering that the dealership was 31 miles from home, we nearly gave it a miss. But, with nothing to do on a Friday night, we decided to head off to the other side of town and look at the car.

At the dealership, the car was stickered at $16,995, but when we showed them the print-out from the ‘net, they immediately agreed to “honor” that price. Talk about having a lot of room to haggle over price! $8,000 of haggle room!

We looked it over from top to bottom, check the warranty, the engine, the trim, the tires, took it on two test drives and ultimately decided to buy it.

So far, so good. But this is where I get a little bit irritated.

The price of the car online did not include some so-called dealer upgrades which had already been installed on the car, in particular some paint protection system and a vehicle alarm/keyless entry system. During our negotiations, both were presented to us a a fait accompli, in that they had been made part and parcel of the car. During “negotiations”, they were repeatedly presented as such. Basically, “Too late, they’re on the car, that’s what we’re selling.”

Frankly, I wasn’t too concerned about the alarm/keyless remote. Those are nice, and every car I’ve had for years has had it built in rather than being an after-market install. I still feel it should have been disclosed as part of the price upfront.

The paint protection thing seems more dubious, and gets more dubious the more I know about it. I regret the fact that we went in unprepared with knowledge on this particular bit of jiggery-pokery. I also regret that it was very late Friday night and we, by necessity, had the kids with us. That means when we were presented with the 90 page packet of paperwork to sign to get out the door, some of them got only the cursory reading.

One one point during the process, we were presented with a document that stated that we had “declined” the security system. When we pointed out that I thought we had accepted it because it was already part of the vehicle, they changed the form and continued on. Later, we were told that it would be a bit before we could take the vehicle, because the security system “was being installed right now.” This got my ire up a bit and I asked why were told it was already in the vehicle. “Oh, we install it in every vehicle on the lot, but once in a while we miss one by accident.”

Honest mistake? Good question. Later it turned out that supposedly that wasn’t true. The security system had been installed, but didn’t work right when they attempted to release it to the control of the remote. (Their lot has some form of master, programmed control of the security system on all the cars.) The unit was to be replaced with a new, working one. Was that true? I could not know, but now I had my doubts. This is the problem with businesses, it takes so little to loose the customers’ trust and how can they ever get it back?

The paint protection thing is clearly a load of crap. Assuming the product works as advertised and completely protects the paint from fading and damage, that’s not a bad thing. What’s bad is that (A) it was presented to us as having been “done already” and therefore too late to remove and (B) that we’d receive additional treatments every 6 months to keep it that way.

Digging through some of the documents that got only a short examination (while the kids were disassembling the artificial plants) clearly indicates that we can reject the paint protection, even after it was applied and another demonstrates that what we really purchased was a 2-year subscription to the treatments. That was clearly presented deceptively to us during negotiations and although fully disclosed in the paperwork, I find this ethically questionable, at best.

Monday we’ll have to check out our options under “Buyer’s Remorse” laws in Arizona. It’s possible we can get a refund for that service.

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