The Car Guy

So I finally talked SuperK into letting me replace my 2009 year Very Expensive Car.  You know - the one with Very Expensive Tires that attract nails and screws from distant galaxies, far, far away.  The perfectly fine car that's working just really perfectly fine?  And when I say "talked" I mean "bitched, whined, complained, go to your thesaurus and find other synonyms for boorish behavior, etc." until she was very close to driving to the nearest car outlet and buying something, anything to get me to shut up.

As an ex-salesperson I try to be open and honest when I'm dealing with current-salespeople. For instance, the first guy I spoke with worked at a distant dealership so I told him that it made sense for me to drive a car much closer to my home and - if I did that - I would give the guy who did all the work the benefit of the doubt.  I don't mean to suggest that I would take it in the shorts to be accommodating - rather that I'd at least let the worker guy know what was going on.  The guy who did the work was good at what he did but the dealership was a little stingy with their trade-in allowance.  I sent a couple of leading emails to this guy to see if he would budge on the price but didn't get anywhere.

So there I am, sitting down with a third guy.  We sort of agree on the price of his car and he starts to figure out a value for my trade-in.  I had taken the time to visit a used car lot so I had a number he needed to beat or I was going to go back to the used car place before I bought anything else.  I wasn't trying to force his hand - his offer was his offer - but I wasn't going to turn any residual money down, either.

"What was the number they gave you?" he asked.

I replied with a pretty honest number.  It was about 5% higher than the number that I . . . you know . . . actually got.  I didn't feel too bad about this . . . you know . . . minor lie.  It wasn't like I said the number was 6 or 7% higher - that would have been an inexcusable lie.  In my lying defense I wouldn't have expected him to show me the paperwork detailing the mark-up of the vehicle based on what they paid the previous owner.  Nobody's lying here - although technically I was indeed lying.  I soothed my soul by considering the fact that I wasn't putting him in a position to lie - I didn't demand to see proof of the dealer profit.  If he had asked what I needed as a trade-in allowance instead of what the offer was it would have been easier on me in the lying department.  So obviously this is all his fault.

He got close to what the actual offer was.  I thanked him, and said I'd go get a check from the used car place and then give him a call to set up another visit.  

"If I can make up the difference do we have a deal?" he asked.  Sure, I replied.  He made up the difference.  I was confident that he didn't want me to leave the dealership.  When he was talking to his management about the extra money I decided to tell him that I was going to get in touch with the second guy, the guy who did all the work.  I felt slightly bad that the work guy wasn't going to get the business, but not bad enough to toss a few thousand dollars down the drain.

I think I got a fair deal.  I'm happy with the number even though I realize I probably could have gone somewhere else and played everyone off of everyone else and gotten a slightly better deal.  I like to sleep a dreamless sleep.

I drove that dude one hundred miles an hour on the way home.