New Car Buyin’

Just got back from buying a new car. Let’s see if I can form any cogent thoughts. Like, for the rest of time.

I was going to make a joke about how chafed my asshole was or some other such metaphor for being used and abused, but it’s not really like that. 

If I had bought a used car, sure. That process is more like waking up in a pool of vomit (not your own) with an already-scratched lottery ticket, and maybe a note about your missing kidney.

But buying a new car is just a fucking drain. On your energy, your lifeforce. Your self-worth and desire to live. Even when you prepare ahead of time. 

Maybe next time, instead of hours online I’ll just lube up beforehand. 

Do they let you test drive if you’re drunk? Because being of sober mind and body only makes the process worse. Instead of offering me bottled water every fifteen minutes, how about a glass of wine? Or a handle of rum.

My old car’s been on its last leg for a while. My commute is a brutal 55 miles each direction, meaning I’m burning through about 3,000 miles a month, 30k a year. Thank God for June and July.

This last car actually lasted a year longer than expected because that whole “schools closed for a year” thing meant no commuting. So in the seven and a half years I owned the car, I *only* drove 204,000 miles. Assuming there’s no new pandemic, look forward to my next “Fuck, I had to buy a car” post around 2030.

Some people like buying a new car every year or two. Not me. If I could’ve driven my last one until it was 300,000, I would’ve. Hell, I’d drive a million if the auto industry would let me. Maybe instead of adding more cameras and monitors and shit, they could, I don’t know, develop an engine that doesn’t fall apart as soon as we finish paying off the car. 

Unfortunately, the engine didn’t agree with my sentiment. About a year ago, the oil started leaking. Not very much, but occasionally after parking the car, I’d get a whiff coming off the engine. Plus there was some drops on my driveway. 

Three trips to the dealership and a couple grand later, the problem seemed to be fixed. Can’t really tell you what it was, because they didn’t fix the right thing the first time. They fixed a gasket. Then it was a mount. When I brought it back the third time, they actually fixed it for free. Like, I didn’t pay for the $500 part they had to order, nor did I pay for the 7-10 hours of labor. Nothing says, “Oh shit, we finally found that thing you were first complaining about months ago” quite like a repair place ponying up for their own labor costs.

That worked for six months or so, but the last time I took my car to the quicky lube (which should totally be the name of a whorehouse), they said there was barely any oil in the engine. They chastised me for going too long between oil changes, and I took it because I couldn’t really remember when I’d done it. I don’t drive much in the summer, so maybe I hit 3,000 miles in May, but had stretched it out another 2,000 when it was mostly trips to the store. Even then, 5,000 ain’t exactly “bone dry” territory, so I assumed my old friend Slow Leak was back.

Three weeks and two thousand miles later, when I smelled what could only be described as a raging inferno of grease and steel coming through my air ducts, I realized Mr. Slow Leak had grown to adult size. Fortunately, I could coast to an offramp with a gas station. Two $12 quarts of oil later, I was able to drive myself the rest of the way to work. 

I bought a third quart just in case this leak became a gusher, but turns out I didn’t need it. In fact, after letting my car sit for a week (I drove a rental until I could go car shopping on the weekend), the oil level hadn’t really dropped much from the two quarts I’d put in. So maybe I could’ve kept driving my old car for another few months, topping off the oil every thousand miles or so, but the writing was on the wall. And it’s not like car shopping in December would be less excruciating than September.

Which leads me to my Sunday through the Wringer.

Theoretically buying a car is easier these days. A little online research will show us not only the price range of new cars, but pictures of the specific inventory currently on the lot. Although the websites I checked listed a bunch of cars “In-Transit” with a caveat that delivery dates are only estimations and should not be relied upon. Except none of them listed arrival dates. So wait, you’re telling me it might not arrive by an undisclosed date? 

Fortunately, there were a couple dark blue hybrids already on my local lot. 

Unfortunately, neither was the car I ended up with. Not entirely sure why. After I showed the guy which car I wanted from his own website, he “went to go grab it.” It looked black, not blue, when I got in it for the test drive, but it was in the shadows and was pretty dirty, so I just figured it was a dark enough blue that the true color wouldn’t pop until it was on the road. Nope. He grabbed the black one. Probably because it’s a “premium color,” despite living in the Sacramento Valley, where summer temperatures regularly top 105.

I did, at least, get a hybrid. With my extensive commute, I figure if I use one gallon of gas each direction instead of two, then over the course of 180 school days, I should be saving 360 gallons, give or take. At $5 per gallon (lol, try $7), I should saved more than the extra $8K for a hybrid pretty quick. I still wasn’t ready to make the plunge on full electric because of the whole plugging in thing. Come back to my 2029 car bitching session to hear about the fire I’m inevitably going to start in my garage when I put in the new docking station.

Yeah, I know I said my next car will be 2030. Maybe I’ll split the difference and purchase it in 2029 after the new model year is released. Speaking of which, the days of getting great deals in mid-September when the new model year came out are long gone. Everything is “What’s on the sticker is what you pay.” Followed immediately by “What’s on the sticker is nowhere near what you pay.”

There’s a dealership closer to my work where the car I wanted cost a couple thousand less. I figured that was my leverage. So the sales guy does the bullshit of bringing in his manager and whatever and allegedly this guy agrees to split the difference. 

Of all the car purchasing steps, this pretend haggling over the price is the worst part. Why the fuck does the “Manager” always use the thick marker and scribble all over the numbers the salesperson wrote down?. It’s not Sharpie because it doesn’t bleed through, but it’s thick and bright. Is that supposed to connote finality? Or boldness because they’re give us “such a great deal”? It’s got to be for some psychological reason, but if they think I’m going to be impressed, it’s a failure. 

Especially when the end result is the same fucking price. I did at least send him back a couple times to tell me precisely what interest rate my 800+ credit rating was giving me. I knew it was going to be terrible after the past eighteen months of Fed action, but might as well scratch off my morbid curiosity. Over six percent, which is a few percentages higher than I had to pay in the late 1990s when the prime rate was… exactly where it is now.  Of course, this was the rate given to me by the car company, so guess who’s going to the bank to get a better rate?

Hell, they didn’t even run my damn credit report. I only found out later when I asked if I could know my rating since I hadn’t run it in a few years. The guy was all, “Oh sure, I can run it. We hadn’t run it, but I’ll run it right now and have you sign off that we did.” Some consumer protection thing. But what the hell? Were they just trusting me when I told them I had an 800 credit score? Kinda defeats the purpose of having a credit score if people can make up whatever number they want and be believed. Then again, if they’re going to be charging over six percent, I guess they’ll just hedge their bets that people like me will offset all the 300 credit ratings who are lying about having an 800. 

Then comes Mr. Extended Warranty Guy, the most hilarious part of the car-buying process. You’ve just spent an hour hearing about how wonderful this new car is, how it’s the height of modern technology, one step away from being able to wipe your ass for you. Now Extended Warranty Guy says “Holy Crap, that’s a piece of shit you just bought. You’ll be lucky if it doesn’t break down on the way home, much less long enough to finish the five years of exorbitant financing were tacking on.”

After I said no for the third time, Mr. EWG told me about a cheaper option that covers dings, dents, and windshield. I splurged on that because Sacramento roads suck. I had to replace the windshield on my last car at least three times, maybe four, plus another half- dozen chip repairs. One time Safelite quoted me a low price on the phone, then said “unless you live in Sacramento, California.” i informed them that i did. They doubled the price. 

I’m sure that what I think is covered won’t be covered when the time comes to fix it. “Sorry, that windshield was damaged by a pebble. Your warranty only covers glass that spontaneously cracks.” But whatever, it only added $20 a month to the payments and if I hadn’t said yes this time, I’d probably still be there today, learning about a $1 a month warranty that covers only the passenger floorboard. We were well past two hours for a car I had already decided on before walking on the lot. I’ll pay $20 a month to make it home before bedtime. 

Then comes the signing. Mr. EWG morphs into Paperwork Dude. Seventy-five pages of initials and scribbling, some on a digital screen, some on paper. I think one of the papers I signed acknowledged the use of tire chains. Highway Patrol won’t let me past the snow checkpoints without them. Can I just sign something then?

Some of the papers were about lead. Maybe asbestos. Probably agreed, under penalty of imprisonment, that I’ll vote for Herr Kommandant Newsom when he runs for president. The state of California probably thinks they’re doing a bang-up job protecting my consumerness, but the more there is to read, the less I’m going to read it. Especially when I’ve already sat through Mr. EWG’s entire timeshare presentation and the Siegfried and Roy tickets will turn back into pumpkins at midnight.

The one paper I slowed down on was the total cost, because I wanted to figure out how the $38k, which I had “negotiated” down to $37k, was now showing up as $44k. The top line still showed the MSRP. When I inquired about that, he said my negotiated price was listed under “rebate,” so the taxes would still be based on the original price. That rebate, by the way, was from the state of California because the car is a hybrid, not because I’d showed them the same vehicle priced lower nearby.

Seriously, why does Manager Dude even do the hardcore haggling? Just say you’re giving me whatever price I’m asking for, then blame the final price on “taxes and licensing.” I wasted thirty minutes “negotiating” money already due to me by the state. Sure, maybe if I hadn’t “negotiated” the rebate, the dealership just would’ve pocketed it. It’s what my district does when the state gives them COLA money to “pass through to the teachers.”

Of course the state is going to give me $500 off right before charging me $4,000 in various other fees. This is the same state of California that’s trying to discourage people from getting solar panels because it made it harder to collect windfall profit taxes from the electric company monopolies. Perhaps if I’d bought a fully electric vehicle, which comes with a $5,000 rebate, the fees would’ve gone up to $9,000. Something about disposal of electric batteries. 

Speaking of that rebate, when they first quoted me my price, it was $50 cheaper per month because they had “fat fingered” the $500 into $5,000. Allegedly. Considering the full electric rebate was $5k, maybe it was less pudgy fingers and more having no fucking clue what the customer was buying before scribbling over it with your marker.

This might also explain why the blue car I’d asked to drive ended up being black when all was said and done. It was all shiny now, so I could tell for certain it wasn’t the car I’d originally asked the salesman for. But what am I going to do, sit through another two hours of new paperwork for something as meaningless as the color? 

If they’ve got a dumbfuck who will accept a rebate as a good-faith negotiation, and who will shrug and accept a monthly payment fifty bucks higher than originally quoted, then why not saddle the schmuck with the black car, too?

Game, set, and match, dealership. 

So now I’ve got a new damn car that I couldn’t be less thrilled with. Come back next week to hear me bitch about all the newfangled shit they’re putting on cars these days.

While telling the damn kids to get off my front yard. 

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