New car!!!!!! Folksy, folksy!!!!!!!

That is right, folks, we bought a new car on Sept. 29th. It isn't brand SPANKIN' new, just new to us. We sold Mel's SOB Saab to some sucker after selling my 4Runner to an even bigger sucker who only had 9 fingers. I did not notice the missing finger until I felt his stump during the hand shake that makes the deal "official". My transaction was with these shady Latinos who could barely speak English, but who spoke the international language. The InterNATIONAL language. Love. Or money. They gave me a fistful of Benjamins and I scampered off to the nearest bank to cash them in before they could rob me.

Anyhoo, we both decided we like the newer Jeep Grand Ol' Cherokees (it's a high-flyin' Cherokee) so we checked out cars.com, autotrader.com, and vehix.com (your roadmap to the automotive world). Cars.com had a huge selection so we did our homework and set off on that Saturday with pre-approved E-loan in hand to use as leverage.

The first place we looked was in Dorchester, the town with the highest homicide rate in the Boston area. These Jeeps came equipped with machine guns on the roof and hood, as well as full armor and ejection seats (optional). It was a bee-you-tiful day and the guy who approached us on the lot seemed like he was more or less honest. And by "more or less honest" I mean he was a total scumbag. "Jim" played the "no pressure" card, which of course means he pressured us in different ways. While we were out on our test drive-areeno, Jim called these other dealerships that we told him we'd be looking at to see what their documentation fee was.

For those of you who don't know what a documentation fee is for, it's really the modern-day "rust-proofing", where they charge you 300 bucks for the privilege to buy a car from them. When we got back, Jim told us his story of how evasive the other dealer was being and pushy and all that stuff, pretty much defaming the poor guy, all the whilst telling us he's the only honest guy in town. Then he took us into his office and crunched the numbers. Jim was asking a good 2 grand more than the other dealerships and not really making any concessions, so I politely told him no, but then he brought in the manager/owner/big shot dude to try and convince us. They were trying to play the "We may cost more, but our service is even worse!" card with us, not budging on price, so this time I put both Jim and Tim (probably not his name) in a headlock while Mel gave them both firm noogies.

We went to the next place on our list, which is in the outlying town Franklin. The salesman who helped us had the name of David Hansen, with an "E", mind you, and he was quite gregarious. He showed us pretty much the same exact car as the one in Dorchester, but this one was 2 grand cheaper and did not have a glaring scratch on the passenger side. It did have 8,000 more miles on it, however.

We then wanted to check out this 3rd dealership, but before we left, David showed us a model that had leather seats (I'm actually not a fan of leather, but they come with heated seats, so that's a nice offer in Boston), a sunroof, and 10k less miles. It did cost 3 grand more, but this car was something we were really excited about. So we went through the negosh process, got the price to come down a grand, and then got the financing through this really slimy character ("Snake") who had a voice like grinding gravel and tatts over every exposed inch of skin not on his face. His office had all sorts of certificates and awards on it, and those corny pictures with his family that you take before you go on amusement park rides or at prom where they put you in front of those fake sets and you pretend like you're having a great time:
He gave us the dreaded "Get the Warranty OR ELSE" speech, where they go through the scenarios of things that could happen if you don't buy their expensive warranty. Since half the reason we bought such a new model was to be able to have the factory warranty for at least 2.5 years, I said no. Then Snake told me this story: "That Tahoe I have out back, just last week I had 3600 dollars worth of repairs that only cost me 100 bucks, and they gave me a rental car, too."

I hate that story. You know it's not completely true. First of all, just last week? Really? What a coincidence! What story did you tell the other people that came in before that happened? Secondly, 3600 dollars? That's a LOT of repairs. What on earth did you do to your car? So I think 2 years ago he had a repair for 360 dollars and he had to pay the 100 dollar deductible. I HATE the warranty speech. I told him about the fact Mel had a warranty on her Saab that never seemed to cover anything. He came back with the "5,007 parts Super Duper Warranty" which listed EVERY single part that it covers. Snake drilled us on what Mel's Saab warranty didn't cover, I felt like I was under the hot light. "Pretty hot in here now, isn't it? Betcha didn't think about all FIVE THOUSAND AND SEVEN PARTS, did you? You sicken me!!"

Ugh. I absolutely ABHOR the warranty speech. After I say the final "No", Snake looked at me like I just signed my own suicide note. I mean, warranties are good, but we ALREADY had one on all the big parts anyway. Once our 3 years are up (March 2010), then I might extend it, but not before then.

So we finally got our car, and so far we love it. It kinda smells too much like cleaner, but hopefully that disappears soon. Here it is, sneaking up on the fishermen's wives statue.