Trading In 6 Years

I'm too young to have ever had a prostate exam, but I feel like going car shopping may be a similar experience. It's probably to your benefit to go through it, but it's really an ordeal to deal with.

It's a process that is full of tough decisions, the first of which is obviously the decision to get a new car. I mean I'd had my trusty 2000 Dodge Stratus for nearly 6 years, at least half of the car's operating life. I've driven it through many states and one Canadian province, it was broken into twice, I've taken out many dates in that car, I've moved twice with that car... it's got a lot of memories in it. When that happens, you develop quite an attachment to a vehicle, one that blinds you to the sheer amount of money it's required to keep the thing legal and running. However, as I've mentioned here before, I have never passed a PA inspection on the first try, and I was not going to go through that again. Believe me, I agonized over it... the cost of a down payment and monthly payments versus the cost of keeping the Stratus legal for another year.

In the end, I chose to get a new car. I thought I had done the homework, looked over the car ads in the newspaper, looked up the trade value of my car, and I was all set to go in there and get what I wanted. Well, it started out alright... I mentioned the special in the newspaper and said I wanted something like that, and the salesperson told me that this particular model was flying out the door, so much so that they had none left. They had one I could test drive, but someone already had dibs on it, so I test drove it, and the salesperson told me that I could step down to the next model down and I would not notice a difference. So we went out with that car too, and he was right. Similar ride and feel, just less bells and whistles, so I liked it, and I was all set to make the deal and get the car. I asked the guy if the car was available in something other than white... not that I was nit-picking, but it was worth asking. He replied, "You know, you should feel fortunate that this one is available." Okay..

Well, he comes back with the offer... and it was then that I realized that when they say in an ad "$1500 down, $169 a month, plus tax, tags, etc." the tax, tags, etc. tend to inflate the price just a bit... as in it was now $2000 down and $212 a month. I asked if that included the trade-in value of my car, and he informed me that my car was worth... A HUNDRED DOLLARS.

So not only am I already feeling separation anxiety over parting with this car that I have had oh so many cherished memories in... but I've just been told that despite my assessment of the car's value at most of the down payment, instead it's not worth a bucket of warm spit. Hell, the car I traded in to get the Stratus (a much older VW Passat) was dead car running when I let go of that, and they gave me $500 for that one. How is a car that runs MUCH better than that old Passat worth a measly $100? Ah, Pennsylvania inspection guidelines got me again... the salesperson said that the Rust Nazis would likely flunk the thing... even though it hadn't accumulated much more rust since 2 years ago when they originally made me replace the damn hood on the thing. Great. And obviously, I was not planning on dropping two large and paying more per month than I could afford.

At that point, I was ready to quit, as my original best-laid plans had gone to crap. However, if you know car salespeople, you know they won't let a sale get away that easily, so he insisted we go to the used car inventory and look at that. I tell him what I can afford, and they find 2 cars for me. I look at the first one, and it looks good enough, then I observe that it's a 2-door car, but that shouldn't matter to me because I rarely have more than 2 people in a car with me anyway. Apparently, the salesperson thought I was nitpicking again because he said it shouldn't matter how many doors I want, at least they found a car for me, and it was better than the one I had. Like I couldn't just leave in the one I had and be perfectly happy about it... until September when it flunked inspection again. Once again, it's the idea that the car you've driven for nearly 6 years is much more valuable TO YOU than they are telling you in terms of dollars and cents, so don't show me a car I haven't immediately fallen in love with and tell me it's better than the one I have now.

See what I mean about this whole process being so gut-wrenching?

Anyway, we go back into the dealership, and they work out the terms for me... and although the down payment was more amenable, the monthly payment for this older used car was... virtually the same as for the new car I just shot down. At this point, I started trying to find a way to leave. I told the salesperson that it would be best if I take his card and (being a loyal guy) come back in a month or so when I could figure out how to afford another car... or of course, I could just go online and buy something cheaper in the interim, whatevs. Anyway, faced with the prospect of seeing a person he had been working for 3 hours (!) leave without a new car, he went to the manager to make one last -ditch attempt by checking my credit score and coming up with something better. Well, thank goodness that I have a good credit score because they came back with terms that were acceptable... and I even gave a few inches in order to get a 3-year warranty. After all, I'll need to be covered if I ever go through (and inevitably flunk) another PA state inspection.

So in the end... I have a new car, a 2006 Chevy Cobalt. And I will get the chance to pile up some new memories in this car, and grow attached to it, and when I get rid of it, I'll think it's worth more than it really is, and go through the whole thing again. Such is the experience of trading in a car. Although in this case, I presume I will have a much more stable job and income situation in 3 years, so the moment that warranty expires, I'm unloading it. It's a "get-me-over" car... but I already like it more than I did when I first saw it... this car attachment problem is serious.