Last thursday my wife and I went out shopping for a used car and end up buying
two!.
The first is a Pontiac Grand Am 2002 Coupe black, with manual transmission, which is what I wanted.
The second, a 2002 Chevrolet Impala sedan, beige color and automatic, and this was to be bought for my wife and my teenage daughter Raquell .
Well, I'm now to narrate what we went through to get both cars in the hopes that we (all) learn a few lessons in the process.
We went to North Park Lincoln Mercury northeast location (used car lot) and asked to see the "Manager's Special" that was featured in the newspaper ad, which had a price of $7,995.00 and it was advertised as V6 among other features, with little effort we convinced the salesman Ray Leonard to knock off $500.00 for the misleading advertisment and he agreed to close the deal for $7,495.00 with a $3,000.00 cash downpayment. Next, since the lady that does the paperwork for the sale (contract, warranty, disclaimers and whatnot) was not there, so he promised that in two hours time we could go back and he would have the paperwork and the car ready for us.
We took off and went to see the other car (also advertised in the same newspaper) in another Used car dealership.
The car, a 2002 Chevy Impala was advertised in the World Car Mazda lot on I-H 10 and Calhaghan Rd. and as we pulled in the parking lot we did'nt see no salesman approaching as is usual so I called the number listed in the ad and Paul Mireles answered, I inquired about the car and he went out to meet us in the parking lot and said that the car was in another lot, about a mile and a half away and so he asked for us to follow him, which we did, he took us to the Service Shop of the other lot on Fredericksburg Rd. and we saw the car. It was dirty inside as well as outside, we noticed a minor dent on the front passenger fender but didn't say anything (why? I don't know), I also noticed that the car stereo was missing the faceplate, it was not the original equipment obviously, and Paul while describing the working features in the car, such as automatic transmission, two air bags, ABS brake system, he said that if we were ready to make a decision on the car, he would get the ball rolling to get the car worked on and ready to drive it.
So we went to the main lobby (or salesfloor) and while we were sitting down on one of the many tables with different big screen television monitors facing us from different directions, another sales person came to us to offer us a new car, we politely declined the offer and waited a little more. By this time Ray Leonard from North Park Lincoln was calling us on my wife's cell phone, the first two calls I ignored but by the third one I answered and he said the he was waiting for us, that the paperwork, consisting of a sale contract including the addendum of an extended warranty, and another without the warranty had been typed by the sales manager lady, and the car were ready, I told him that we were on our way there, we did not want to divulge to neither side that we were doing two deals at the same time.
Once again, the other salesman, apparently higher in rank that Paul approach us at the table and offer us a new deal on another used car but newer and with less miles ( the Impala had 90,000), and again we declined the offer, he went away . Paul then brought the car over so I could test drive it, which I did. I liked the car, it drove very smooth and quietly it handle turns and and braking nicely, but I noticed that while driving it, the "low coolant" light was on and Paul assured me that it would be taken care of back in the service shop.
Since they had us waiting even longer we decided to use the excuse of having to go to pick up my younger son Miguel Junior from school and went back to close the deal at North Park with Mr. Leonard. But before doing that we gave another $3,000.00 cash downpayment to get the deal rolling, asked for a receipt and told Paul that we would be back later after picking up Junior.
We stop at the house on our way to get the Grand Am and took Raquell with us just in case we had to beat up somebody ( just kidding) We got there and sure enough the paperwork was ready, it had to be amended because my wife would not sign a note for 60 months, she wanted another contract typed showing at least 12 or 24 months. This is the best part of the deal, my wife is good with numbers (my weakness) and sometimes salesmen get annoyed by the pushing of my wife to re-do paperwork until it shows numbers and results the satisfied her, but the results are the expected. Anyway the car was ready for delivery, it had been cleaned up inside and outside, the engine compartment steam-cleaned and to top it off it had a full tank of gas!
I was pleased. my daughter liked the car too. We closed the deal and drove off, left the car in the house and went back to World Car, and by this time Paul had already called to say that the car and the paperwork were ready.
We got there and, Paul took us to the sales manager's office to sign all the paperwork which was
not ready, the man was doing it while we were sitting there. We finished and walked out to get the car and oh surprise! the car was not ready. At that moment (only then!) I realized that the charming attitude that Paul had exuded us just before we made the deal was just a facade. Stupid me!
He promised to have the car fixed and ready by the next day . We went home a little disappointed, but not before we went inside the sales manager's office and re-do the paperwork because the price shown on the contract was higher that the price advertised. Once again my wife's mathematical skills came into play (Thank God) and by re-doing it it saved us more than $850.00, and once my wifa was satisfied we left, it was already 8PM of a long thursday.
...I'm tired now, I'll write down the conclusion to this story tomorrow.
