Well, as of Saturday morning, I thought my wife and I would be driving a new car to church on Sunday. But, as the thread title implies, we were in our old car at church Sunday morning instead!
So we spent most of Friday afternoon at a local new car dealership, looking at various vehicles and driving some. We settled on what we wanted, then went in to start the blood-letting - umm, I mean "negotiations."
That part actually went pretty well. Sales guy only went back and forth to the sales manager three times, and I only had to haggle with the sales manager one time when he came in to take over for the salesman. Normally, I would expect to have to do more of that, but we actually ended up with a very good price that I was happy with. By now, it was late, and the bank I'm using to finance it was closed, so I told them we would be back in the morning to finish up the paperwork. They wanted me to go ahead and drive "our" new car home, but I thanked them and said we would wait until everything is done first.
So we showed back up Saturday morning. Everybody's all smiles. Wife and I are all smiles, salesman is all smiles, F&I guy that my salesman hands us off to is all smiles. Everybody's happy. It's gonna be a great day!
And it starts off well with the F&I guy. But apparently he didn't get the word, so I can tell he's disappointed to learn that I've decided to go with my own financing rather than using theirs. That means he and the dealer don't get their cut of the financing deal, and he doesn't get to try to sell me his overpriced GAP insurance. So he moves on from there and pitches me the extended warranty. "No thanks, not interested" I tell him. He tries a little bit more on that, but gives up pretty quickly. The smile that was on his face is now clearly a frown, but he trudges on.
About now, I tell him: "Oh, by the way, I have $2,000 worth of rewards points on my GM credit card that I will want to redeem, so pull that off the top, too." So he sort of grouses under his breath a little and whacks on his computer keyboard a minute or two, then prints out the actual contract with all the money numbers and puts it in front of me to sign.
So I'm looking it over, and see that the top starting number is $3,750 HIGHER than the number that the sales guys and I had settled on. So I say to the guy: "What's this number?"
He replies: "Well, you're doing your own financing, so you lost the $750 incentive to use OUR financing." (Which was really not true, since the price I had negotiated I was not counting on any manufacturer incentives). But, I just set that aside in my mind for a moment, because we were still $3,000 over our agreed price and I just wanted to see where he was going with that.
So then I said: "Ok, so then what about all this other money that's still above our agreed price." He says: "Well, we've got to show that the $2,000 that you're redeeming that goes on the top of the price we settled on."
When I hear that, I suddenly get pretty hot under the collar (but nothing drastic, still under control). He's telling me that instead of taking OFF the $2,000 that I'm redeeming (which is my OWN money, NOT GM money or dealership money), he's ADDING it ON the price, so he can then take it back off.
And I never even got far enough to ask where that one more extra $1,000 above our agreed-on price came from.
So at this point, I just lean back in the chair and say: "That ain't gonna cut it. Better go get the sales manager." So he storms out and is gone for just a minute or two and comes back by himself and says: "Yep, sales manager says that's the deal."
My wife and I immediately stand up together and I say: "Ok, I guess we're done." And we walk out, get into our old car, and drive off.
So the search continues...
Except now, I've got to call my credit card company on Monday and find out how to get my rewards money back, because I got an email Sunday morning thanking me for redeeming my points and hoping I'm enjoying my new car that I purchased from XYZ dealership!!!
Sigh...
