Long Story about Haggling in America

We woke up naturally at about 9:00. Casson went to get a coffee from the Lux, and I started getting ready for the day. We were planning on leaving shortly for Tucson. The Shapiro's had heard about a bicycle swap meet on Sunday morning in the old capital of Arizona Territory. At about 10:00, however, we hadn't yet heard from the Shapiro's, so Casson decided to zip down to the Subaru dealer just down Camelback. I decided to go even though I didn't feel too excited about buying a new car. I thought our Montero was just fine, and who cared if we had to put a ton of money into fixing it, we'd probably still save money in the long run. But then there was the question of breaking down on the highway, which thankfully didn't happen, but just about did when I was driving my parents from the airport to our apartment last week. The car had barely made it home. So maybe a trade-in and a newer car wouldn't be a bad idea. We went to get the Montero washed. I ran into Cyndie ahead of us in the car wash line. Cyndie, my wonderful and proud Greek coworker, who doesn't let a chance pass to give me ideas for little girl names. So as she and her car were about to be led into the octopus-like cleaning machine, and she was suggesting 'Mia', and I would have made some response, but she suddenly disappeared into a whirlwind of mist and soap. By the time we made it through, she was gone. The Montero looked so good, I think Casson almost changed his mind about the new car idea. So we drove over to the Subaru dealer, where we were attended by several eager salespeople. The one who latched on and didn't let go was a small blond woman from down under. I think that when we mentioned that we were looking for an Outback, the non-Aussies sort of withdrew, and let the accent do its work. But to no avail. They didn't have any used Outbacks older than '07, except for an extremely old one that looked like it was about to fall apart. We'd told her our price range, and she told us that THAT was all we could expect to find within our price range. We thanked her for her time, and a tall salesman tried to get us to stay a bit by pointing out some Suburbans we could get financed for $150 a month. Not Suburban, sir. Subaru. So we did what no Phoenician who is not hunting for a good deal on a car would do. We drove to Mesa to see an Outback we'd seen online. We pulled into the Chrysler dealership. A woman came out of the sales office to greet us. She was wearing normal grocery shopping clothes, and we liked her right away. She said that the car we were interested in was at their Gilbert store, which made us gasp for oxygen. But she explained that the store was only three miles away, so we breathed easy. She offered us a ride, and I opened my mouth to accept, but Casson told her that we'd rather follow her there, if it was all the same to her. I don't think it was all the same to her, but she had no choice. When we got in the Montero, Casson said "it's all about control." I guess so, because I sure felt it.

At the other store, we saw the car we were looking for. It was in good shape, hadlow mileage, and had exactly what we thought would be good for space, comfort, and all that. Asking price was about $4,000 more than as advertised online, so Casson mentioned it, and she said no problem, the online price would stand. Casson also mentioned we'd like to do a trade-in. No problem, she said. So Casson and she drove it back to the other store and I followed in the Montero. We parked and inspected the new car, while she inspected our old one. Then we went inside and the NEGOTIATIONS began. Was I transported back to the souqs of Fes? I think the haggling went back and forth more times than in any marketplace in history. At one point, Casson said "Well, thanks for your time ma'am, that's more than we are prepared to spend" (and it was, he wasn't lying), and he began to get up out of his seat. I, on the other hand, began to sweat profusely, and my face turned red hot. There was a tenseness in the air that I could sense, but I didn't understand it. Finally, I began to snap out of it and started to stand up, when she said "Well, wait here, I'll go see what can be done." So we sat back down. I couldn't believe it. Is this how it worked? "Yes, this is how it works," Casson would tell me with a glance. I fidgeted through the manual, pretending to be really interested in how the seat belts buckled, not wanting to say anything because I was convinced that the office was tapped. Finally she returned with an offer no better than the first, so at that point we really did leave. It was a little bit calming to leave. You've got to make up your mind about the limit, and stick to it. Well, we drove to get something to eat, and on the way, Casson had an idea. If we payed that amount, but kept our Montero, it would be worth it. So he called her back and told her his offer. She'd call him back. So it wasn't over? This was all at about 1:00. We had lunch, with about four phone calls from her with different offers. Casson chewed his turkey sandwich and graciously declined all of them, even when it was brought down to only $200 more than our offer. He decided that we should probably be wise and look elsewhere in the meantime, confident that they would call back. We spent some time at the Mesa library, looking up dealerships, but mostly killing time hoping they'd call back. No phone calls. So we went to a Scottsdale dealership, and they had sold theirs. No phone calls. By this time it was 3:30, and we were heading back to Phoenix. We were both thinking, it's only $200! But we had decided not to do it, and we had to draw the line somewhere. Just as we were cresting the hill through Papago Park, and feeling a bit crestfallen, the phone rings. They came down to our offer, no strings attached. Woohoo! So we turned around and headed back. She came out to greet us, and we went in and bought the car. Our saleslady was great, and very happy for us, but the man behind the drawn curtain in the back office didn't appear so. We caught angry glimpses of him from time to time. And our saleslady had to go ask him some paperwork questions a few times, and we'd hear her voice, but not his, even though we were about 10 feet from him. So strange! So that's how we got our new car.