The Center of the Anomaly

AAY – Car Buying 4: Driving Mr. Mitchie January 27, 2013

Last weekend I drop by for the test drive and meet Salesguy 1. He’s the “Internet Sales Manager”, mid-30’s-ish, very personable as your general salesweasel must be. I want to take control and set the basic rule for our first meeting.  I start off with “I’m not buying a car today. I just want to check it out.” “No problem,” is his response. We go out to get the car. He pulls out a very nice looking silver one. I like silver. We start going over all the stuff it has. Having owned a ’01 RAV4 for many years I’m very impressed with what they’ve done with the model over the next 11 years. Sure, it’s mostly small things as the overall basic design hasn’t changed – it’s still a small SUV, but taken all together it’s quite the improvement. And then there’s the fact it’s the top-end Limited model vs. low end base I’ve been driving. There are lots of extra goodies because of that. I try to make mostly neutral-ish sounding noises. At one point he pulls out a pocket knife to fiddle with some recessed tab to show me some neat storage areas the back cargo area has. I recognize the butterfly mark on the blade: Benchmade. He rises a couple notches in my estimation. You gotta give “props” to a guy who carries a Benchmade knife.

I get behind the wheel and Salesguy give me the “key”. It’s just a fob with three buttons: lock, unlock, and “panic”. To start the car you step on the brake pedal and push a button. The car recognizes the fob as the electronic key. Neat. As a guy who’s locked his keys in his car a few times I REALLY like a system where I don’t even have to take them out of my pocket. Off we go – I give it the usual gas and we SURGE forward. Yeah, two more cylinders makes a significant difference. I get it out on the road and get a feel for how handles differently from my car. Everything is buttery smooth and I LOVE the improved acceleration. The ride isn’t as soft as Mom’s Mercedes, but damn, it’s not that far off actually. Salesguy remarks that he doesn’t have all that much to say about the car since I already know so much about the RAV4, which is true. He does get to point out a few of the other things we didn’t look at before we went out though. It’s a fairly short test drive. I WANT this car. Any lingering thoughts about going with a used Mercedes disappear. 

Overall, it was very hands-off and not at all pushy with this guy. I really dislike high-pressure sales tactics so he rises a couple more notches.  I get the feeling I can work with this him. We head over to his cubicle to discuss things further.

AAY – Car Buying Part 3: Deal Me In January 25, 2013

Ah yes, per the instructions over there you start with The Folder. Basically you need to make sure all your credit history stuff is in order. Once a year you can request a free one from the Big Three: Experian, Trans Union and Equifax. You can find them on-line and download .pdf versions and check them carefully for errors. Happily there were none on mine. I put them in The Folder (or rather my Kindle Fire, same thing) in case they try to pull any Funny Stuff. Other tasks were to download some spreadsheets and start planning my strategy and best cost scenarios.

At some point I decided to drop the used Mercedes option, I want new. For the 2013 models Toyota made a bunch of changes to the base design interior-wise, but the outside looks much the same except they pulled the spare wheel off the back and stuck it under the back cargo area. Now the rear door opens upward instead of to the side. I’m very interested.

Car Buying Tips recommends getting all your price quotes online and they suggest a few places to get the ball rolling. One of which is CarWoo so set up an account but there I was limited to just searching for the 2013 model Rav 4.  Ok.  I set up another account with a different website (forget which one) and start the ball rolling there too for 2013’s. I start getting responses pretty quickly. And I find out that they dropped the V6 engine option for all 2013’s – four bangers only. Also I find out they’re only just now getting to the dealers and there aren’t many to choose from. On top of that only the base models are available at the moment. No, that’s not going to do. I’ve had 4 cylinder cars all my life. I want, nay need a V6. WE MUST HAVE IT PRECOUSSSSS! So, 2012 V6 Limited it is. I notify everyone and one drops out. With CarWoo the dealer can’t contact you directly. All emails are routed from CarWoo itself. One of the other sites gives your contact information to the dealer he calls me fairly quickly. Here we go.

He offers a $1000 off MSRP of one he has in stock and tell me they currently they offer $1500 rebate or 0% financing. Car Buying Tips tells you that very few people qualifies for the 0%. I’m sure that’s true. It’s not true for me though, that I was certain. It’s easy to calculate which is the better option – %2.99 less the $1500 rebate or 0%? Zero percent is absolutely the way to go. We discuss all this and set up an appointment to do a test drive. I look at some of the other offers, one of which came back substantially under his. Woot!