Scrap that car/Buy another

Yesterday morning, I met the salvage guy at the mechanic to haul away my wrecker. When I called the guy on Thursday he said that he'd pay $125 for my car. I balked at that!! PUUULLLEEZE!! I then played to his soft side and played up the fact that I'm just a single mom, had no insurance on the car and am flat broke. I need more. He then said that he wanted pictures of the car and he'd think about price. I sent him the crash pic and he texted back with a $200 price. SOLD. He said his guy would pick it up that night and to meet him Plans fell through and the guy couldn't make it and rescheduled for the morning. I decided to not only play up to the guys soft side with my story, I decided that using my god given assets wouldn't hurt either. So, I chose to wear a v-neck shirt. heeheehee - it worked. He threw down a wad of cash on the hood of the car and when I counted it, it was $100 more than his original quote. heeheeehee - men are suckers for boobs and "helpless women". I wasn't that helpless and just decided to use what I could for my gain. I didn't wear anything that I don't normally wear, but I made sure that I chose my outfit to suit the occasion.

C, D and I headed out last night to look for cars. We started at the Dick Hannah used car lot right up the street from C's house. The kid (and I do say kid b/c I'm guessing that he was MAYBE 22/23yo and very nerdy) was nice and got online to see what used vehicles the Dick Hannah group had in stock in my price range. They had a Hundai in another town, so C suggested that we test drive a "newer" model of the same car so I can see if I like it. I'm glad she was there to help think of the things that I didn't. C and I were in the front seat and the "kids" in the back. C and I had the kid cracking up b/c we slug each other when we see VW Beetles. Newer models get just 1 slug, but old (original models) get 2 and an original VW Van gets 3!! Anyways, there are tons of Bugs around that area, so we were on a slug fest. Every time we slugged, the kid would laugh. And D gets into the game by stating: Slug Bug green (or whatever color it is). No slugging allowed from kids.

We left that dealer (I have to see the actual car before I purchase, so the kid was going to have it driven up) and headed for a quick bite for dinner. After dinner, we headed to a Hundai/Ford dealer and got a weird slimy dude as our sales person. I was quite put off by the dealer right away, cuz we pulled on the lot and no one came out to greet us. Nope, I had to walk into the building and the sales team was sitting at a table and looked at me like I was disturbing them. So, slimy guy got up and greeted me. I told him my parameters and he was then flustered and confused. We walked across the street and he still looked confused on what cars to show me. Finally, he settled on a Pontiac Grand Am. We took it for a test drive and I liked it, but wasn't thrilled with it or the slimy guy. (oh, he also had a weird smell to him) I looked at the price on the car and it stated $9700. Ummm, I had a MUCH smaller budget (like almost $5k less) than that. $5000 was my budget. So, he REALLY turned me off when he said that there was wiggle room in that $9700 price tag. Ummmm, almost a $5ooo difference? That sent red flags up in C's head immediately. She kept saying to me (quietly) "just shows you how much this dealer marks up their prices". After a quick processing of what she was saying, I agree'd. And we were outta there.

Right behind that dealership was another - Alan Webb Mazda. We got on the lot and were greeted by Bob. I told him my price limit and that I'd be paying cash. He then had us walk to the back of the lot to show us a Civic that they just got in and it hadn't even been inspected yet. Having had a Civic prior to moving to WA, I was excited. He grabbed the keys and then went in to find out what they were thinking about selling the car for. I looked at the car - it's a Civic so I was familiar. After a few minutes, Bob returned driving a Grand Am (hmmmm) and stated that the CarFax on the Civic showed that it had a salvage title on it once and had a few "dings" on it's record and the dealership wasn't even going to sell it to the public. From that point, I really liked Bob.

The Grand Am was in my price range. It's a 2000 with only 75k miles on it!! HOLY COW! I knew I was going to get an older car b/c of my limited budget. We took the car for a drive and I did like it. It's silver, black leather interior, moon roof, upgraded package and the best part - a cassette player!! WOOO HOOO!! I can go find old Air Supply, Night Ranger and Winger tapes and jam to them. Yes, it also has a CD player - but CD's won't last, they're just a phase.

So, I bought the car. It's in my price range, low miles and it'll work for me for the next few years. The picture isn't of the car I bought, but it's the same color, model and year.