Car shopping

My truck has 110000 or so miles on it. Since about 75000 I've been thinking about buying a new one. This weekend I actually got enough momentum to go out and test drive a couple. We looked at this one:

The Nissan

and at this one:

The Ford

I have to say, that shopping for cars is a fairly crappy experience. I think this comes from when you go, and when they are ready to talk to you. I mean, if you just want to look around then the sales people aren't too keen to talk to you, and if you are serious enough to actually want a test drive, well then they are too keen to talk to you.

Since we did want to feel what it was like to drive these things, and to sit in the back seats of each of them we did want to test drive. And then after going through the trouble of the test drive we did kind of want to know what the thing would cost. So we would up sitting at dealer desks for much longer than I think either of us intended on.

Interestingly, cars only have a price today. They can't tell you what the price will be tomorrow. Really that's a misstatement. Car's only have a price now. After now, well that's just speculation.

Now I know why people like to shop with Saturn.

We never did get a price from the Nissan guy. After about a half hour conversation he told us that if we weren't buying today that we should just go to the web site. The Ford guy didn't even really ask, but more told us he was going to tell his manager that if it was the right price we would buy right then. That at least got us a figure.

They took my keys so the guy could look over my truck for the trade in value. Marisa thinks they do it so that you can't leave.

Once we got the figure we did the "I have to go talk to the manager" thing. Then we actually got to talk to the manager. Then the manager went away to get his absolutely best price. But we got away anyway.

Today the salesguy called three times saying they think they found us another couple of bucks a month off the payment. Interestingly, without really thinking about it we'd chiseled about $3600 off the price of the vehicle just by trying to leave. I think it had something to do with being the end of the month, but its a tactic I will have to remember.

In the meantime I think we want to look at the Chevy and a Toyota, and maybe another Mazda - as the one I have has done pretty well for me. I hope it has the miles left to get me through a decision.