The Saga... Part 1

I don't think that there is anything more stressful than car buying. There's so much anxiety looking at features, sweating over interest rates, and negotiating price. I wouldn't let myself into a new car for fear I'd vomit all over the meticulously vaccummed seat. They should consider serving a valium with their free bottled water at the dealership, geez.

I have been driving a black 2007 two-door Hyundai Accent for a few years, but two car seats later and more than a dozen road trips that just wasn't working out for us much. We needed safety, space, and cargo room and an SUV seemed like it would be the best option for us.

Brian and I both are on Team Anti-Minivan. We narrowed down our options and price range when we happened upon a modestly priced 2003 BMW x5. We met the salesmen at his house because he lived closer to our house than the dealership which was in Dallas. Of course, we fell in love with it. There wasn't much to not love about it, leather seats, sun roof, AH-MAZING safety features, and enough trunk space to haul a decent stash of Ikea furniture, you know, the really important stuff.

We prayed and negotiated the terms of our loan and felt truly blessed that everything seemed to be falling into place...

I'll go ahead and tell you that whenever things seem like they are working in my favor I immediately start to doubt the situation.

Sure enough, we had signed at every last x except for the last page and the terms and numbers were not AT ALL what we had agreed to previously. I'm not sure where the mistake happened and the sales guy swears it was a mistake, but long story short, the deal was a no-go.

We were heartbroken.

At that point my stomach is pretty turned and I'm ready to give up. But we went back home and hit the internet again looking, listing, and exploring our options.

The following morning we went to a Nissan dealership for an appointment to look at a 2006 Nissan Murano, same price range but a little newer and less fancy.

We met our sales guy, Genuine.... Let's ponder the irony of that, a used car sales man named Genuine. Riiight.

We test drove a white Murano, and I immediately knew that this car was the one. After all, we had looked over the features and price on the internet the night before. I was ready to sign on the dotted line as soon as I turned off the engine.

Except that this Murano was not the Murano we came to see.

My first question of course was, "so, how much is it?"

"Genuine" didn't know the price. But promised it would be close to what the original Murano was.

Aaaaand, we waited, and waited, and waited.

Genuine came back with a sheet with sharpie marks scribbled all over it and dropped it on the table.

My heart starts racing and I can feel the heat and anger rising in my belly when I see that he's got a number that is $8,000 MORE than the one we came to see. No where near the same price range!

I had about had it with car people at this point. It was past lunch time and the kids were getting retless. My parents were with the kids playing in the lobby and I went to pull them together so we could leave.