Another year gone by! Time does fly and life goes on. It's been a rough year, with the loss of my mother in law in December, right before the holidays and various other challenges to supplement. Fortunately, work and related remain status quo and we continue to plod through. M and B off on their own, and us with no school loans to pay? What to do? Time to buy a new car!
I haven't bought a car personally in nearly eight years and I soon remembered why. Here is the summary:
Drawn to the Mazda CX-3, I decided to go in for a test drive. After a morning volunteering at a soup kitchen, I wandered over in my old Jetta with my hair up and with hairnet-head. They assigned me to a salesman who took me to a table with dirty napkins and crumbs on it and began to explain why I couldn't just test drive the car, I had to sit and listen to him tell me about the car. Why did I want to wait for my car to give in before buying a new car? (I tell dealers I am just browsing so I can escape if I don't like it there, but in reality, I was ready to buy when the time was right.) Well, here is why - because of salesmen like him! I left without even finishing that conversation. He was unkempt, rude, and unprofessional.
Next up was a Ford dealership to drive the Focus and the Escape. There's also a new Escape-like vehicle that's a little smaller, with letters for a name or some such thing. I drove all three. The highest miles-to-empty of any of them was 11. One said "0", Said the salesman of that one, "well, we can just go up the block." None of those Fords had any pickup at all, but I have to admit, it could have been the lack of fuel. The salesman didn't seem to care - he heard how many miles I drive for work and tried to sell me an old Prius-like thing that was sitting used on the lot, its seats all wrinkled from years of high mileage commuting, I will assume.
After that I let the search fester for a few more weeks before visiting a Subaru dealership. While we were there, we had to run out to take care of something suddenly, and when the salespeople called me, I explained that I would come back to them when I was ready. Meanwhile, I had a VIP voucher for 2% below invoice and a week later, I tried to get the invoice prices from the salesman for two of the cars. It was the most tedious email exchange I've ever tried to conduct, and I finally gave up and got an internet price form another local dealer, which was better than the 2% off deal anyway.
I moved on to Volvo, and that didn't work out either. At BMW, I checked into the X1. The guy who I spoke to was with someone else when I arrived, so he sent me out in a silver demo with a lovely young lady who must have told him after that I didn't like silver cars. So he texted me and said he had a blue demo that would be ready in the next week. I haven't heard from him since.
Since I've loved my little Jetta wagon and was sad to give it up, I drove the VW Alltrak and liked it OK but the steering wheel felt cheap and left my thumb a little sore. Finally, I found a guy who let me drive the CX-3 and the CX-5. He was a nice guy, as was the guy as VW, and I would have bought a car from either of them, but I just didn't love the cars.
I thought of a Mini, because they're so darn cute, but the dealership near my office recently closed, and the one near home is half an hour in the wrong direction. And since they're so hard to get serviced, I decided not to bother. Plus - premium gas. Boo. (Same for Volvo and Beamer.)
So what did I do? Went back to the second Subaru dealer and said, I'm here to test drive a Forester and a Crosstrek. A few miles in each, and three hours (!) later, the Crosstrek was mine. Hopefully for at least the next eight years, because I can't do that again anytime soon! After that, we were off to NYC to see the Band's Visit!
And in other news, I've caught a cold. I don't think it's fair, because I was terribly ill over the winter holidays and think that should be enough. But - such as it is. So I must go and try to find a way to breathe again.
