Ticket 2 Ride

Warning: This is a bit long, so buckle up.

I hate car shopping. Let me repeat that: I HATE CAR SHOPPING!

Some people enjoy the experience and the negotiation process. I’d rather have dental surgery. A survey identified that more people would rather wait in line at the DMV or occupy the middle seat on a long flight than drive up to a car dealership.

I had a pretty good car already: five years old, low miles and no damage, so I didn’t have to buy a new car. Keeping it was a great option, so I could turn back and keep what I had.

My last car purchase took about a month from start to finish; however, this time I was three months in when the deal was done. All that I wanted was a newer version of the car I had. Easy peasy. Unfortunately, I learned that this model would undergo a major remake for the 2026 model, which changes the basic look of the vehicle – something I didn’t embrace. The unique shape would morph into a generic SUV looking vehicle. Okay, so this news put some emphasis on finding a new 2025 vehicle.

I narrowed my search to two dealerships, one local, the other located in the next town over. Looking at the new car inventories online, I also compared each dealership’s discounts and fees. Before contacting a dealership and triggering sales calls, I wanted to know dealer pricing, my online research of fair market sales, what my trade was worth, and prepare myself on the buying process. Did I mention that I hate this process?

I’ve purchased numerous cars in my life, but the last time, I selected and negotiated it all online, only showing up to test drive it and buying it the same day. That turned out to be a relatively easy painless purchase, unlike a few others in my younger days. My goal was to use this online shopping and negotiating process again.

Why is car shopping such a painful process for me? It’s a lot of money, and you hope the car you get doesn’t have a problem right away. Hope is not a good strategy.

During those three months of looking, I conversed with those two dealerships, asking about various cars, and even test driving one. That visit turned out to be a negative experience for me. The vibe that day was not right. The salesperson I was supposed to meet was unavailable and I ended up with someone not very interested in helping me. The salesman went out to do a quick appraisal of my car, not because I agreed to deal, but to get an idea what they might offer. I had to ask for my key fob back because he made no effort to return it. He dug it out of his pocket after I asked. Red flag. After the test drive, instead of waiting around for the sales manager to get around to work up an offer, I left. He was busy BSing with other salespeople. I made a trip from out of town to see a new car on their lot, at least give this some importance. Red flag.

The local dealership had a bigger selection, was located closer to where I lived, and had serviced my current car a couple of times. Oh, and I had purchased my current car from them too. Twice, I was leaning towards certain cars, but they sold before I could commit. The longer this process dragged on, the harder it got for me. I was gun shy for some reason and I was tempted to just stop.

Along the way, I had begun thinking about a more upgraded trim, rather than just a newer version of what I currently had. I think it was talking with my wife about the towing capability of different cars, something that I hadn’t initially thought about, so I thought about it. This engine upgrade increased the price a few thousand over my initial selection. Instead of the trim and color I had spent months looking at, I switched gears. I went with this upgraded trim and the larger engine.. The bigger engine would play a further part in this story.

Also, I began watching some videos on YouTube about new car buying and the problems that buyers complained about. I probably shouldn’t have done that, because I hit pause in my search. Are car dealerships really as wily and overbearing as these videos presented? What I actually found in my search were salespeople that (with that one exception) were engaging and not overly aggressive. A friend recently purchased not one, but two cars, at the first dealership I visited, and her salesperson contacted me to see if he could offer help after I left the dealership after that test drive experience.

The problem wasn’t a lack of quality cars, or outrageous pricing, it was me spinning my wheels (pun intended). It reminded me of the gigantic sized Stayfuff Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters. I imagined the problem, and there it was. To make my anxiety worse, my wife and I went to test drive a car that I was very interested in, but when we arrived, we were told it had been shipped to another dealership. That upset me – why couldn’t they have told me ahead of time the car was unavailable? I called the general manager and left him a message stating that while I liked his sales staff, I was unhappy that the process broke down and that I didn’t know if I’d continue to look at his dealership. He returned my call, apologized and said he’d ask my sales contact get ahold of me, which they did.

Eventually, I found a car with a unique color and trim package, and the bigger engine that I wanted. My sales contact found that car in Omaha. Then she called back to tell me that another one just like it, was on its way to a dealership about 20 miles away. She would get the car if I wanted it, and they waived the requirement to place a deposit. I learned that the car was supposed to arrive at the dealership where I had done the test drive. Ironic. A week or so it arrived and I went to drive it.

We had agreed on the deal before I went to drive the car. My wife felt I could have gotten a better deal, perhaps I could have, but any extra juice wasn’t worth the squeeze to me. Dealers do put a lot of effort on selling you extras, which I turned down. The paperwork process was more streamlined and less imposing than when I bought my previous car from them. I must say, this dealership has upped their game in customer service. The general manager had contacted me and wanted to know what he could do to aid in my car buying experience and gave me his personal phone number, which I’m glad he did.

I drove my new car home, glad the new car experience was over. When my wife got home from work, I got into the car to back it into the street so she could pull into the driveway. When the motor started, a thick cloud of gray smoke came out of the exhaust pipes. That’s not natural. I thought it was an odd, one-time thing, but the same thing happened later. Smoke everywhere. Crap!

That personal phone number I just mentioned, I quickly dialed it. Long story short, the next morning my car was loaded onto a truck and taken back to the dealership. A loaner car was delivered to my home. The service manager and I corresponded many times over the next couple of days as he kept me informed on every aspect of this search and repair process.

I’m summarizing the next part, it still irks me. Apparently, the car manufacturer has noticed a small number of vehicles were experiencing a similar problem with their turbo models. A production error. An engineer was called in to oversee the corrective operation. Over the next several days, the repair team tested and inspected the engine, made the corrective measure, test drove it and delivered it back to me.

There’s no worse sight than watching your new car, with just 42 miles on the odometer being loaded onto a tow truck. The problem was the misalignment of a conveyor of oil that allowed it into other engine parts, where it got hot and smoked.

What else could go wrong?

A day or so later, my wife found this on the driveway where my car had been parked.

After a thorough inspection at the dealership, it was not from the engine, but was a bolt from a skid plate underneath the front of the car.

Six weeks later, no other mechanical issues have surfaced.

My wife joins the car search

On the heels of my search, my wife decided to look at trading her nine year old car for a new one. She did her research and narrowed it down to two different cars made by the same brand as she currently owns. She has her car serviced at that dealership, where she also bought the car. We went to test drive those two new cars – not to buy or even negotiate, but to get a feel for those cars and see what her car might bring as a trade. Very clear. We told the salesman this, several times.

We ended up test driving four different cars instead of just two, to help evaluate car size, comfort, features and feel of the road for comparison. She narrowed the search to one of the two cars she initially was looking at, and a car she hadn’t considered. They asked about her trade and she gave them the key to look the car over.

This is where the journey goes into the ditch. The salesman said he’d print out pricing information on both cars, just so we had pricing information. Included on the printouts was what they believed her car was worth as a trade. The amount seemed low. I had done a preliminary search for what her car was selling for – it was sufficiently higher than this dealership’s amount.

The salesman started his negotiation thing, and my wife stopped him, again saying she wasn’t there to negotiate, she wasn’t buying today. I asked for her key back because he hadn’t returned it. He kept pushing and got his manager involved. They wanted to know why my wife thought her car was worth more than their number. I again asked for her key, which they returned at that point. I was getting mad, and I had yet to say anything other than firmly request her car key. They claimed not to trying to sell her, but they were. I stood up and informed them at we were leaving. They gave us a surprised look as we walked out.

The salesman later texted her to ask if he could call. She answered no. The next day he called and asked if we had found a small device in her car. He was vague about what it was, but we hadn’t. He made one last effort to make his point that they weren’t trying to sell, but came off as argumentative and aggressive.

Upon further examination, my wife did find a small device plugged into a slot below the dashboard. We did an online search and found out it’s a device that downloads system performance and operational data used in evaluating trade-in vehicles. Obviously, they overlooked telling us that.

My wife will resume her car quest but will bypass that dealership.

Take Aways…

According to an Autotrader survey, “only 17 percent said they like the current car buying process just as it is.” I’m not the only one.

And, “More than three in five Americans (61%) feel like they’re taken advantage of at least some of the time when shopping at a car dealership; 52% of Americans feel anxious or uncomfortable when visiting a car dealership.” This is according to a Harris poll.

Dealing with the finance and business end of the process sucks. I’ve had some bad experiences, but generally it’s very time-consuming, up to three hours, even when you aren’t financing through the dealership. And then, they pressure you into add-ons like warranties, insurance, maintenance packages, etc. No, no and no.

According to Money, “Nearly three fourths of consumers, 72 percent, want to complete the credit application and financing paperwork online.”

Going a step further, “three-quarters said that “if given the opportunity, they would consider making their entire car-buying process online, including financing, price negotiation, back office paperwork and home delivery.” – Accenture survey

Each car dealership is different. Sometimes those videos I watched are spot-on, other times you are fortunate like I was to purchase a vehicle and then resolve a vehicle issue.

I’m hoping it’s another few years before I trade this one for another car. Maybe by then, there will be an even less painful process.