Buying a new car isn’t as much fun as it used to be

My wife and I bought a new car last week. At the time, we owned two cars. One of them is old enough to drink and the other one is old enough to vote. We could have kept them longer, but we wanted to buy a new car, so we did.

It wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.

When we were working, we used to buy a new car every 3-5 years. We’d pick a dealer, tell him what we wanted and how much we wanted to spend, negotiate for a while and drive away in the car of our choice…complete with a full tank of gas, that new car smell and a payment book with 36 handy tear-off pages inside. That was before we both retired and started keeping cars long after the warranties expired.

This time, we wanted to pay cash for a car rather than finance it at a rate of 1.9 or 2.9 or 5.9 or any-point-nine percent that would add hundreds or thousands of dollars to the price of the vehicle, so we selected a dealer, hooked up with a salesman and made this offer: “We want to buy a car and pay cash for it. We have (a certain amount of money) and a car to trade. What can we buy for that amount?”

The salesman started banging keys on his computer, clicking this link and that link and checking Kelley Blue Book, Carfax and what-have-you, and finally said, as I recall, “For that amount I can put you into a 2019 (name of vehicle).” Oddly enough, that’s exactly what we wanted to buy, so I said, “OK. That’s great. I’ll call you in a day or so when we have the money in hand.” Then we drove home thinking we had a deal.

The next day, when I called to make arrangements to pick up the car, I was told we really didn’t have a deal after all. It seemed the story had changed somewhat overnight. “I said I could get you close to the car you want,” the salesman said. “I’ll have to talk to my manager to get the exact amount you’ll need.” That “exact amount” turned out to be $5,000 more than we had agreed, so after a few choice words on the telephone, we said goodbye to the salesman and went shopping at other dealers.

I went four other places and met four other salesmen, including one who tried to sell me the same car as the first guy for an extra $2,000 and one who tried to manipulate me into an overpriced car with fewer options that we couldn’t afford anyway. Eventually we settled on another make of car with many more options for less money than the first car would have cost with comparable equipment. The salesman didn’t lie to me (as far as I know), we like the car and it's a 2020--one model year newer than the others--so everything turned out for the best.

- - - - -

The whole car-shopping experience brought back memories of new car deals my wife and I have made in the past:

* Once, my wife rode along with a friend who was having some repair work done on her car. While they were waiting, my wife started roaming around the showroom, saw a car she liked, buttonholed a salesman and traded our car for a new one just like that. She called me at work to break the news.   

* Another time, we bought a car on Halloween, which is traditionally the last day of the model year when dealers need to clear their lots of the old models to make room for new cars. They practically gave the car away, making such a ridiculous deal that when we traded it in a year later, we got back more than we had paid for it in the first place.

* My favorite story involves a red 1987 Honda Prelude.

The first time I saw one I had to have it, but a salesman told me he couldn’t get one. “We can’t keep the red ones on the lot,” he said. “How about gray?” So I told him no thanks and left. He called me at least three times, offering all kinds of deals on gray Preludes, which I politely declined each time. Finally, I lost my patience with the calls.

“I don’t want a gray Prelude,” I told him emphatically. “I don’t need a car, I just want one, but the one I want has to be red. If you can’t get a red one, so be it. I’ll just keep the car I have. Now don’t call me again unless you have a red Prelude ready for me to come pick up.”

I was driving one two weeks later.

When I was 14 years old, Ford came out with the original Mustang (bottom photo). I wanted one more than anything, but I was too young to drive and my parents couldn't afford one, so I never got my wish. In 1987, Honda came out with the new Prelude (top), which reminded me a lot of the original Mustang with the long hood and the short cropped tail. I bought one that year and it was easily one of my all-time favorite cars.