adventures in car buying.

So this post has pretty much nothing to do with jewelry.  But it has everything to do with what has consumed my life for the entire month of June and most of July – buying a car.  If you follow my life at all then you know that I left San Francisco at the end of May and landed on the other side of the bridge in Berkeley without a car.  My brother was kind enough to let me use his car while I stayed with him and I had a lot of fun driving it.  I learned that there’s a stretch of 880 that smells like freshly baked bread all the time since the driver’s side window doesn’t roll up and another window in the back is punched out.  I made a game out of avoiding potholes as one of the wheels is bent but he couldn’t remember which one, just that it was on the right side.  I never worried about walking around the car to load groceries in the backseat because the passenger side door didn’t open.  I took my time pulling the gear shifter into drive since the knob had a tendency to come off in your hand if much force was used and I made sure to make my way over to the right lane any time I encountered a slight incline as the car quickly lost power trying to climb over anything larger than a speed bump.  Oh, and then there was the day I flipped on the windshield wipers and one of the blades flew off.  Yep, it was a pretty sweet ride.  But with plans to relocate to LA, I needed my own vehicle.  And after losing my job and coming to terms with moving back to Sacramento, I needed a car.  Like, quick. 

Have you ever gone through the car buying experience before?  Because I never have.  Who knew that looking for cars was like having a full time job?  Mornings were spent combing through ads on craigslist.org, autotrader.com, and cars.com, creating a list of potential cars within my budget (a measly $5000), and researching said cars via kbb.com and Edmunds.com to find retail value on vehicles in good condition vs. excellent condition vs. private party vs. dealer.  I’m tired just thinking about it.

And then the exciting part – test drives and discovering how chauvinistic car culture still is.  There were the greasy looking dudes in gold chains at the mom n’ pop lots who informed me with great earnest that “these cars have their own market value” and refused to negotiate price.  Riiight, but who really pays sticker price and I’m not in the habit of paying more than what something’s worth.  Are you?  Then there was the guy at Carmax who laughed at me and asked if my budget was in American dollars.  Hey, eff you, buddy.  And I will never be returning to a Carmax.  Ever.  Again.  And then there was the kid who tried to negotiate a date into the selling price.  Quick tip on that one – if you’re going to try to ask someone out who’s interested in buying your car, wait until the sale is over or lower your price to what they’re willing to pay.  Just sayin’. 

One morning, I stumbled across an ad for a Volkswagen Golf at a Nissan dealership in Dublin, so I hopped into Trevor’s Honda and drove out there.  After the test drive (and the hour wait beforehand for it to finish inspection), I was pretty much sold on the car.  A couple days later, my mom and I head out to the dealership and after another quick test drive, we went inside to talk numbers.  Here is where we encounter Chris – the epitome of a car salesman without looking the part.  He sat us in his office, brought us some water, and then promptly disappeared.  I sat patiently waiting; my mom fidgeted in her seat, constantly craning her neck to find Chris, getting more and more volatile as time passed.  Chris came in a few times to check on us, “Just a few more minutes.  Be right back,” he’d say and then leave.  “What the fuck are we waiting for?” my mom said.  “He’s just playing games with us.  He’s trying to gain all the power.  We shouldn’t have taken the water.  We should have asked why he was offering it to us, should’ve said, ‘Why? Are we going to be here long?’  Oh, I’m so pissed.”  And after 20 minutes of this, Chris finally comes back in his office.  He sits down at the desk and asks a couple questions, entering the data into the computer.  “Okay,” he says, “the final number is going to be - ”  

“Wait a minute,” my mom interjects.  “Aren’t we even going to negotiate price?"  Uh-oh, this isn’t good.  This is about to get ugly.  Have you ever seen that one movie with that one scene where the character goes ballistic and flips over a table or some other piece of furniture and then continues to destroy everything within sight?  Yeah?  Well, it wasn’t quite that bad but there was a lot of “this is bullshit” and “that’s not true” and “she can’t afford that” and my mom was up and out of the office, out of the dealership, and nearly to the car by the time I could get out of my chair.  Chris stood behind the desk, looking a bit stunned.  It all happened so quickly, a matter of moments and there is never enough time to diffuse the bomb before it explodes.  I look over at him as I’m walking out of the office, unsure of the proper goodbye in this situation so I just say, “Thanks for the help, enjoy your day,” and run after my mom.

I drove back to my brother’s that night, feeling a little discouraged.  Nothing is going my way – dealerships hire dickheads, private parties try to scam dates, cars that are reasonably priced are snapped up in an instant, and I can’t apply for a loan due to my unemployed status.  The whole researching cars and looking for a fair price has become a chore, no longer fun and exciting, just time consuming and frustrating.  As a last ditch effort, I took another quick look on craigslist before bed and there it is – the perfect ad.  An ‘01 Golf with 125k miles, automatic, in silver with black interior.  Everything else – the sunroof, heated seats, 6 disc cd changer – are just icing on the cake at this point.  I immediately reply to the ad and the next morning, I have a response.  I drive out to Petaluma, test drive the car and couldn’t be happier.  Besides running smoothly and feeling immediately at home in it, the car is cosmetically clean – no visible dents or scratches, no stains or rips to the interior.  And it’s within my budget - $4200.  This.  Is.  My.  Car.   

The rest is pretty boring – the next morning I make a three hour trek via BART, Muni, and Golden Gate Transit out to Petaluma.  We chat briefly and whatdayaknow?  She also designs jewelry!  She can be found here and is a member of the Petaluma Craft Mafia.

And hey, look at that…I did manage to incorporate jewelry into this post after all!

***Just something I realized after posting this - after all my dealings with car sellers, the one that had the fairest price, was the most upfront, had the most well maintained vehicle, and ultimately the one I purchased the car from was a woman.  Food for thought, you know?***