Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Car Shopping: Epilogue

Our recent car purchase was bugging me. Not the car. It's real nice. Almost too nice. It was all those extras they kinda slipped under my defenses. I told myself I'd go back and ask to cancel all the extras in a couple days. I didn't want to deal with it right away. I hate business stuff, and I was already burned out over this.

But not Connie. On Monday she's up and ready to see our insurance gal and to go to the credit union to see if they could give us a better deal on the financing. She mentioned her plans, trying to start a discussion with me about it. I was rather abrupt, not wanting to deal with it. I told her to go ahead and do whatever she wanted.

When I came home from work she said Provident Central Credit Union had a much better deal on both interest and insurance. She'd gone ahead and told them to start working on whatever it took to transfer the loan. Their manager called Lithia leaving a message. An hour or two later she said they called back and said we'd have to go in to sign a few things to change the deal.

Sounded good to me. The neat thing was it sounded like we'd be switching to a better financing and insurance. It didn't include the thousands of dollars in add- ons we'd bought into. Oh, well. I told myself I was going to deal with that, anyway. With this change in financing I felt better prepared to deal with changing the rest of it.

We got down to Lithia just after 1pm. Went inside and kind of stood around until some gal came over and asked if we needed help. We told her what we were there for. She went to one of the back rooms, came back and said someone should be out to see us soon. I paced back and forth while Connie sat in a chair for what seemed like an hour, with the same gal coming by about half way through telling us he should be out to see us any minute.

The Sales and Finance Manager finally comes out. I realized when we left we hadn't waited anywhere near an hour. Maybe half of that. He asked generally what we wanted to do but seemed somewhat familiar with what we were there for. I mentioned that not only were we switching to Provident, I also wanted all the add- ons removed.

I expected him to try and talk me out of at least some of those but he didn't. He just asked us to follow him to his office. He told us he'd had Coast Central Credit Union send the loan packet back to him and we'd start over with Provident as the original. Made sense as it would be easier than shifting loans from one credit union to another. Good thinking on his part.

About the only thing he said in regards the add ons was the free oil changes for the life of the car (just under $600) was a good deal. I told him the bottom line with that was I'd rather pay for those as needed rather than pay up front with interest. The big thing, I told him, was I really didn't want to drive to South Broadway to get my oil changed. I'd prefer someplace closer like Antich Automotive where I get my truck serviced. He understood that.

I took the time to look at the itemized list of things we'd purchased as options. Probably closer to $4000.00 than the $3k I'd thought it was on Sunday.

He had us sign three of four revised forms, then called Provident. Got hold of the manager and made some arrangements, including faxing her a copy of the new purchase agreement. About that time the sales guy we bought the car from came in to see how we were doing. I jokingly blamed the whole thing on him. 

That was it. Maybe an hour and half from the time we left home until we got back. Now we only owe $13k plus change as opposed to the $17k it was just a few hours ago. I feel better about this now.

2 Comments:

At 1:39 PM, Blogger julie.strub said...

That's great you got rid of the extra stuff. I got an extended warranty on my car (about $1,500) and never used it. Now, it's expired and I realize it was a total waste of money. I'll know for next time.

 
At 2:12 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Some of those sound good, but are they really worth it?

One ad- on they had was some super coating they'd spray on the inside and outside of your car to protect it, but it was something like $1500.00 or more. The car is going to suffer wear and tear anyway and I really don't think that would help much, even in the short term.

The free oil change thing was tempting, except I really wonder if we'd use hundreds of dollars worth of it. I know one guy that bought from Lithia who was sorry he turned down the free oil changes. He said it would have cost him $1500(!) for his truck.

Then the free dent repair. That was tempting because of the condition of the car, but it only covered the dent. No paint. Plus, I believe you can get dent repairs for $50 to $100, anyway. Something that would make better sense to pay for when needed.

Provident Credit Union gave us a better deal on the mechanical warranty, although I forget the details.

I figure the only time I'd feel good about the mechanical warranty is if there's a big problem within the first 6 months or less. After that I'd probably forget about it until it was expired, then realize I wasted my money. Then again, it's all about what sort of risks you're willing to take.

 

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