Do you like buying cars? I do. Well not the dropping money part - I just like messing with salesmen and trying to get a good deal. Well back in 2008, we needed a new car. Mostly because our 1994 Jeep rusted out to the point that there was about a 6" hole in the passenger side floor. And to start it, we pretty much just had to pray and crank & crank until it would finally start after 5 minutes.
So the husband and I had a set number that we could spend on a car. So I took a different, new and equally annoying approach in '08 on our car buying adventure. I went into dealerships, went right up to a salesman and said "Hi. I have X amount of money to drop on a new car - so you can have this money and you can give me any car on the lot. I don't care what it is. It just has to be new." Most salesmen thought I was nuts and directed me to their manager. Again, I explained my situation. I had X amount of money that I was willing to fork over to the dealer - and in turn, they could give me any new car on the lot. I didn't care about color, transmission, size. We just needed a vehicle to get us from point a to point b.
I walked out of 2 dealerships with no car (and I'm sure a lot of eye rolling and snickering behind me). Now granted, our number was very low. But hey - that's what we had to spend on a car and we wouldn't budge. We were very adamant about it being new because we're snobby like that. We got offered used cars for our figure, but nope. Wasn't going to happen. But on my third dealership, I got lucky. Sort of. The dealer said he'd give us that figure for his choice of car if it was the end figure after the trade-in. He actually thought it was kind of cool - he had a goatee so he knew a thing or two about coolness. Knowing that my Jeep was crappy beyond all crappiness, I agreed. Said dealer picked out a nice, new, automatic, white Ford Focus. It didn't have power windows, but it did have A/C. Apparently, said the salesman, no one wants a car without power windows so they were having a hard time getting rid of it. I didn't even realize they still made cars without power windows at the time. He offered us $200 for the Jeep without driving it. He ended up needing to get a tow truck to move it. Maybe he should have test drove it before he agreed to the $200...
There are many advantages of not having power windows - one being is that my kids have an element of growing up in the 80s that I never thought they'd experience. Plus, it teaches them that if they want their car window down, well by golly, they have to do it themselves. Secondly, these wonderful crank windows made it possible for us to afford a new, reliable car for a cheap cost. Long live the crank windows!
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