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What we did with our holiday weekend.
We bought a car today.
After testing a Honda Accord, a Toyota Camry XLE, and a Camry LE, we wound up with a 2005 Camry LE with a V-6 engine and a moonroof and about 30,000 miles on it. Compared to the Corolla we've been driving, it's got great handling, a much smoother ride, and far better power and acceleration, and it's much roomier. And yet it's still a Toyota, which means good gas mileage even though it's larger.
It's a Toyota Certified Used Vehicle, which means it passed an extensive inspection and has a bumper-to-bumper three-month 3000-mile warranty and a 100,000-mile powertrain warranty. So that's good.
I think we got a very nice deal on it. We paid about $3200 less than Edmunds.com reckons is the fair market value of the car with all its add-ons and adjustments and the Certified status. We didn't get much for our trade-in, a 2000 Corolla - but frankly, the Corolla needs a lot of work. That's why we wanted a new car in the first place.
Shopping for it was kind of entertaining. We told the guy at the dealership that we were looking for a 2006 or 2007 car with less than 50,000 miles on it, and that our price range was $15-16K. He came up with a 2004 Camry XLE (luxury interior fittings) that had 55,000 miles and had a sticker price of $14,900, and a 2007 LE with only 12,000 miles and a sticker price of almost $21,000. He swore those were the only two used Camries on the lot. (Uh huh.)
He tried to get us to go for the expensive 2007 one, promising to get his manager to give us a great deal and coming back with a quote of $17,500.[1] Michael and I got up out of our chairs. "Okay, thanks," we said. "We understand that this is all you have, but we really were looking for something more in the middle of those two cars. Maybe we'll come back for another look at the 2004 XLE tomorrow."
I had to hang back for a minute to get my Corolla keys from the appraiser. I saw the salesman talking fast to his manager. By the time we got Alex strapped into her carseat, he ran out the door. "I just found a 2007 with 20 thousand miles on it!" he said. "He'll let me give it to you for $16,500."
"Maybe we'll come back and look at it after lunch," we said. We went to Wendy's and got something to eat. While we were there, Michael's cell phone rang. What do you know, the salesman had found another car in our price range (the one we wound up buying) and he could give it to us for $15,200. I had to wonder how many more cars he would find in our range if we stayed in Wendy's for another hour!
$15,200 was actually a great price for that car, and we didn't expect him to come down any further. All the negotiating was on the value of our trade-in. He offered us a thousand bucks. We politely said that we knew it needed plenty of work, but we weren't going to buy the car if the net differential was that great. Michael suggested that he give us $2800 for the Corolla. He came back claiming that his wholesaler had made a generous offer to give us $1800 for the Corolla today only.
Michael looked unenthusiastic. I turned to him and said, "You know, I'd hate to think that we bought a car hastily, just based on the fact that this was the only dealership open on Sunday." He allowed as how I had a point. We sat and let the salesman sweat for a couple of minutes. Finally I said, "If you bring it up to $2100, I think we'd have a deal." And there it was! We had a deal. (And, honestly, probably a generous estimate of the Corolla's true value. Our mechanic has told us that it needs at least $1800 worth of work.)
Buying a used car is fun. Michael and I make a great negotiating team.
Alex did amazingly well. Her patience started to flag as the afternoon wore on - after all the shopping and test-driving and negotiating it was another two full hours from when we shook hands on the price to when we drove away, which was enough to try my patience, let alone a three-year-old's. We had packed a backpack with snacks, books, small toys, coloring books, and crayons, and she played with her stuff, crawled around inside the cars in the showroom (closely supervised), and ran back and forth on the sidewalk outside. We took turns test-driving everything so that we didn't have to keep hauling her carseat in and out of different cars.
We had debated whether to bring her along or hire a babysitter, and in the end I'm glad we brought her. It took a little longer to double-test-drive everything, but I would not have been nearly as patient a shopper if we'd been racking up $10/hour babysitting charges and worrying about getting back in time to suit someone else's schedule.
Yay, a new car! It's so big and comfortable!
[1] Edited to add: He kept trying to get us to think in terms of the size of our monthly payment, and not in terms of the total price of the car. We had to refuse more than once to entertain this line of argument. I think that was the biggest thing that helped us stay within our budget and get a good deal on our car.
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Leaving the dealership and driving away works really well. Lots of people threaten to walk out. Giving the salesman your cell phone number and then driving away sends quite a message.
Plus, it was lunch time. And we were hungry.
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You have the near-twin to our car (2004 Camry, though 4-cyl and no moonroof!), so I can also add that to this day I love that car so much I still find myself staring at it in awe that it's mine, and I hope you're going to be as happy with this one.
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Keep a close eye on the moonroof. They tend to leak. Toyota may have found a solution to that problem (and if anyone could, it'd be them) but do watch for leaks.
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I've had pretty good success by doing all of my shopping on the Internet, and walking in with the printout of their advertised price in my hand. (Negotiation? What negotiation. You advertised that you'd sell this car for this price. See, here's the proof. Here's the money; where's my car?)
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I know there's a story you are telling about shopping for it, but right now I'm having trouble getting past ooooooooh shiny.
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I hate bargaining. Need to find someone who doesn't if we ever buy a car.
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Fun times.
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Vroom. Vroom.