Big Thumps up to both of Us
We went to the car dealership today to test drive our Toyota Matrix. We got there just as it opened shop at 9am. It was a bloody cold start though -26 it got to, but with the wind chill it felt even worse but we managed, in our Long Johns, warm coats etc etc.
We test drove the car to see if we liked it, its a cute little car, its only a two wheel drive and a very basic model, the way I see it, it's less things to go wrong and as long as it gets us to the mountains, who cares? The sales man then showed us the next model up "half loaded" and a four wheel drive. To be honest I didn't really gel with that one.
When we got to the office we got down to the drawing board on prices. He wanted over $19,000 for the half loaded Matrix but it was just far too much, well over what I was willing to pay I felt uncomfortable. I tried and tried to hammer the price down but he just wasn't moving.
He then showed us a Carolla (I don't think I spelt that right, but hey) it was a 2003 but it showed. I looked nice on the outside but inside it was dirty and the seats were stained and with over 110 km's on the clock I just could justify the over inflated price.
We decided to start to do a deal on the first basic model and in the end after lots of haggling, crusie control fitted, thermostate and anti freeze checking and our oil changes for free over the next seven years or until 160,000km's we got a good deal. The car is on 53,000km's at the moment and is a 2005 car. It hasn't really gone anywhere apart from around Edmonton, I don't think. Its still under warranty, and has new wheels on it and drives very well on the icy Edmonton roads.
We went to put the down payment on it and then they tried to charge us a documentaion fee, this is because we didn't take out this stupid insurance they had offered us. This documentaion fee is for cleaning the car and paper work, oh come on give me a break! Neil said "well I don't want to pay it" and the guy was still saying you have to. After a while of looking clueless at him and arguing the toss and us still not being able to justify the $295 charge he waved it. Result. 
When we walked out it was 1pm we had spent a whole 3 hours looking and test driving three cars. We managed to save ourselves about $3,000 by haggling and wearing them down but it paid off. I'm not the easiest customer you know.
It makes me laugh when I think of today, before we started to do the deal on prices the sales guy was calling me a cute girl and by the end of it he was virtually ripping his hair out. What a bitch am I, but at the end of the day I don't want to be stung by some car garage, do I. | 