Exhibit A: Valentine’s Day
If you’re going to buy me a Valentine’s Day card, can you buy one for me to give to you too?
Exhibit B: This Is A Date?
We received a form letter in the mail from our car dealership.
They were looking to buy 2000 Chevy Prizms.
Curious to see how much we could get for it, we trudged over to our trusty mechanic, had him fix the check engine light, and then drove to the dealership.
At first they thought we were there to pick up a car. When we waved the letter at them they suddenly seemed very happy. We verified that we didn’t have to trade the car in, that we could just sell it to them without buying another car.
Our salesman, let’s call him Joe, asked us what kind of car we wanted. We decided to let him show us a Honda CR-V. We took it for a quick test drive out Rt. 2. I’m a bit disappointed that we didn’t put it through it’s paces a bit more. Seriously, the ABS didn’t even kick in. We didn’t even come close to rolling the thing over.
Then we get back in, and the negotiation over price. Dina is loving it. I’m bored. The starting point: $24,300 – $300 = $24,000. $5,000 downpayment. $1,250 for our trade-in. $536 a month. Up to this point, I’m following along.
Then we start negotiating. First Joe makes sure we can afford the deposit. OK. Then things start going weird… we start negotiating on payment. Really?
Dina is enjoying this. It’s a pure number negotiation. Every time Joe gets up to get new numbers from his boss Dina can barely contain her laughter. “Dance monkey, dance” is her preferred phrase.
I keep trying to force the discussion back to actual price, claiming I’m not good at math. Joe reassures me that even people with math degrees can’t figure out actual price from payments or vice-versa. I take out my Treo and start putting my math degree to work. Sidenote: I’m surprised that these salespeople fall for my I-can’t-do-math act. I can’t be that good an actor.
Anyway, we get the payments down to $340.32. The price has moved from $24,000 to $22,793. The value of our trade-in goes from $1,250 to $1,800. Less than 10% off the initial price.
Dina and I beg out of the negotiations, we need to sleep on it. I’m dumbfounded. Is this how car negotiations happen???
Dina and I had lotsa fun together… odd what one considers a date with a kid on the way.