1/18/08

I still don’t own an Altima. Nor do I drive an Altima that a credit establishment owns. I went in to see the dealer again last night and Bo was bending over backwards, sort of, to make the deal happen. They were playing the “he said he would buy it so we’re going to get it all ready to guilt him into signing” routine. I said several times that it still depended on what the finance guy had to say. Bo plopped me and mom down in his office with a credit application and took off to get the plates for the car. He came back five minutes later and asked for my driver's license. He came back in another five or so minutes and took the credit app. We sat for another half hour or so and finally he came back to take us to the finance guy’s office. Several times I started to get up and walk around but wasn’t sure what that would do to their game. In the finance dude’s office we sat some more. He typed on his keyboard for a bit, probably playing “World of Warcraft” or something, and then said something to the effect of, “Let’s see what we can do here.” He shuffled the mouse around and then printed out a sheet of options. It was a “menu” of sorts with all the interest rates available for Nissan cars. He said I was a tier zero or tier one and highlighted the rates for those. On loans up to 48 months, I could have gotten a 1.9% rate. For 49 to 72 months, it would have been a 2.9% rate. “Well,” I said, “those look really good but they are for the sedan.” “What?!?” he exclaimed then had another look at his computer. “Oh, sorry.” He went on to say that I was right and that for the coupe he could do 5.9% or 6.9% rates. He crunched some numbers but they were too high. What he was trying to do was get me to commit on the promise of 2.9% then print up the sheet for me to sign and tell me of the “mistake” he made earlier. I caught him at it though. We diddled the number for a bit and came up with $472.00 for 72 months or something, which would only be $150.00 more a month than Matilda’s loan. Mom made a grunting noise and said she was ready to head back to the car to read her book. We let her out and I thought about it for a bit. I excused myself to go talk to her for a moment. She didn’t like the bait and switch tactic of “offering” 2.9% on one car but not on the other. I couldn’t ‘splain why a $30,000.00 loan on a sedan was different from a $30,000.00 loan on a coupe either. I went back in and used the old saw, “Well, that’s still more than I want to pay for a car that isn’t exactly what I want.” Bo tried again to see if there was anything he could do. I told him, “Yeah, give me the $3,000.00 trade in on my old van and figure out a way to collect the state’s voucher.” He said, “Yeah, I wish I could.” I told him I'd talk to my credit onion today and get back in touch with him. My next tactic is going to be to see if they’ll give me the 1.9% for 72 months. I'm sure they won’t so I'd settle for the 2.9% for 72 months. Thing is, I don’t need that car, I want that car but I don’t need it. They NEED to sell that car. I'm going to be patient, take my deposit back tonight, unless they roll over on the financing, and wait for that car to get too expensive for them to sit on anymore. I think they might roll over on that financing number next week. We’ll see. Now, like yesterday, I'll probably have more to this story as things develop over the course of the day but for now I'm moving on. I had a really sane thought this morning. What I should do is get my deposit back, forget the Altima, and drive Fifi while making Marty into my daily driver. Marty, with the Chickenhawk’s Z-20, fuel injection, five-speed, air conditioning, bigger brakes, and better suspension, should make a decent enough daily driver. I'd still keep Fifi to lug mom around if Marty wasn’t comfortable enough for her. Speaking of which, I mentioned to her that I'd settle for a black Versa with a six-speed. She surprised me by saying she’d be on board for that if I didn’t make it ride as rough as the blue car. She asked if I had changed the shocks. I told her it was the ultra-low profile tires that made that car so harsh. I promised I wouldn’t go that extreme on another. Those were 17” plus twos so I'd go with 16” plus ones on the next car. I need to get feedback from my cohorts on that idea. I know Gregg is against it having said as much when I mentioned it to him. John will probably agree with him. [ Are you high? - SM ] Pat, well Pat’s an enigma sometimes. No, he’ll probably agree with them. The biggest question will be, “Why did you sell the blue car if you are going to build another just like it?” I don’t really have a sane explanation other than helping Enrique rebuild his credit, and Juan could argue the sanity of that. Well, there is the option of collecting all of those parts and selling them as a “DLR Edition” kit for the Versa. I guess there’s another thing I need to ask opinions of. Well, it is noon so I'm going to sign off for a while. I'm sure Bo will call me again this afternoon and I'll let you know what he has to say. Ok, I've heard from the credit onion and they want to beat the offer from the dealer. I have the dealer sending the worksheet, or whatever, to the credit onion and hope to hear back from her soon. I think I've blown my chances of getting the 2.9% financing though. I tipped my hand a little too early I'm afeared. Oh well, if the credit onion won’t beat the dealer’s numbers by a significant amount, I can still walk away. Like I told Donna at the CU, I want to buy this car, but they need to sell this car. So, we’ll see what transpires over the weekend and I'll let you know on Monday. Toodles.