Dealing with car dealers

**WARNING, IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE ARE/IS A CAR SALESMAN, BYPASS THIS POST***

So, we went to the Automall to test drive a few cars last night. Can you think of anything you like less than dealing with car salesman? I can't think of much. But, as I mentioned in my prior post, we need a new car. So, we bit the bullet, dropped Connor off at Grammy's and Pa's and went to test drive cars. We were NOT going to buy a car, we were just looking. We had two dealers we wanted to check out: Dodge and Honda. The people at Dodge were expecting us and knew they didn't have the exact car we wanted. So they were only expecting us to test drive and go and that's exactly what happened. I'll be honest here and say that experience was pretty painless. The car salesman at Dodge was actually a car salesWOMAN who was probably in her late 60's, so that in itself was odd. But, I will admit, it wasn't too bad there (we test drove the new Dodge Journey, which is Dodge's version of a MDX or a Pilot. It was okay, pretty nice but not as nice as the Pilot or MDX.)
So then we went on to Honda. Before we drove up we thought of some of the traditional one liners the car salesman was guaranteed to say to us at some point in our trip there. Here are our top 5 car salesman lines:
5- My manager is letting me give you this car at this price, but just this one time. He's never done this before.
4- Don't wait too long, these cars go really quickly.
3- We only have one like that.
2- I've got some great financing specials today, but they end today.
and the number 1 thing you will hear when going to a car dealership...
1- What would it take for me to get you to drive away in this car today?

You'll be happy to know that our guy actually never said the number one thing. I was kind of disappointed. He was a newbie though so just give him time. At first it was okay, we went on a test drive, talked about the cars, Dan and I decided what we wanted and all was good. Then we went inside. What is it about inside that makes these sales guys lose all of their normalcy? He sat us down and started the process of walking back and forth to the manager's office to try to see if they had the car we were looking for. They didn't. Dan and I decided that we would just wait it out and if it took waiting another month for the 2009 models to come out so be it (turns out we are approved to do a month to month lease on our Acura so we can keep it a little longer if need be. We just didn't want to because we are already over our miles). Well you know car salesmen don't like to hear that you want to wait. So he probably did a secret hand movement and the manager came over to tell us all sorts of tales like the 2009 modes were going to be so much more expensive and he had great financing specials on the 2008 models, yada, yada, yada. It was pretty annoying. They didn't even have the car we wanted in a 2008 model but they thought it would be a good idea for us to add aftermarket stuff (to a brand new car) so we could buy the model they had. Ugghhh, what is their problem?? Needless to say, we walked out of there with no car.
So, we still have the Acura. The plan at this point is to keep it for one more month and buy a car Memorial Day weekend. It gives us a little more time, gives Dan a chance to finish finals, the 2009 models will be out and Dan is convinced they will have better deals on that weekend (he's probably right). So, joy, there is more time with car salesman in my near future.

One final note: congrats to my dear husband for getting a 99% on his anatomy physiology test today. What a smartie he is.

Loves to all.