Never Again

Since Lyle has harassed me for not posting often, I recon this might be something worth posting: I finally went through the excruciating experience that is buying a new car. I don't think having a new car is particularly interesting, but the experience of dealing with car salesmen is something I'd like to avoid for as long as I can.

I'd like to say I largely tried to follow this advice, though I strayed in some areas; most local dealers don't seem very interested in giving quotes over the phone (or online, much to my dissatisfaction). I think the smartest thing I did was bring a friend, who turned out to be much better at confronting the typical salesman bull that I was cognizant of, but not silver-tongued enough to counter.

I'm particularly shocked at how haggling turned out to work. I had been led to believe that haggling would involve us lowballing them while they argued for an insanely high price. This was sort of true (on their end), but our demands stayed still throughout the whole negotiations, and in truth all that happened is was that we sat in the dealership for several hours until they agreed to the price I wanted.

The day after was fairly amusing too; there were a few dealerships I stopped by to try similar makes. Suffice to say, one place (a Mazda dealership in Renton; never go there if you can avoid it), was populated by the slimiest of salesmen, who wouldn't take no for an answer after I test drove a single car of theirs. They called me back the following day, and when I told them I had purchased a car, their response was "*lowered voice* Oh. Well, congratulations. *click*". I burst into laughter.