THE CAR SAGA, PART 3

CHAPTER 3: PITFALLS

We had a gift horse, Agents. No WAY we were gonna look it in the mouth.

So, giddy with happiness, we began to shop for cars. This was fairly easy-- we live just down the street from a major Auto Mall, so there's no shortage of test-driveability going on.

Agent ACK, who was on vacation, volunteered to come with us and lend us his expertise (as he had JUST leased a new Toyota RAV 4.) Mrs. ACK joined us as well, so we were well armed with facts and figures as we prepared to do our Due Diligence Shop-Around Comparison.

First stop: Honda. We had heard that the "big 5" dealers in terms of quality and safety were no longer the likes of Ford, Dodge, Oldsmobile and the like. No, the Japanese models were de rigueur in terms of mechanical lastability, which was our major buying concern. (After driving a 1991 Dodge Spirit, one gets a little paranoid about one's automobile's staying power, Agents.)

Immediately I didn't like Honda for two reasons: Smokey. Bob.

That's right, Smokey Bob is one of those dyed-in-the-wool Alberta Car Salesmen who'll put his arm around you, fix you with a yellowed, rheumy eye and grin with nicotine-brown teeth and tell you how you and "the little lady" ought to see yourselves in this nice car, all things being equal and you and he see eye-to-eye because you're menfolk, don'cha know.

Holding my breath to avoid his aroma and listening to the voice of forty years' smoking rasp on in my ear, I had a mad urge to scream: "I wet my pants and wear dresses and can't go out without my mommy's permission because I'm a bad boy!"

Yeah, it's a non-sequitur. But it's also the verbal equivalent of gnawing off my own arm to get away from the trap that was Smokey Bob. I'm not like you, Smokey. I don't want to BE like you. Don't hold the door open for me. Don't put your arm around my shoulder. And don't assume I'm going to like your off-color jokes just because I have a penis, you ancient throwback to the fifties-redneck-days bastard.

So anyway. Drove the Civic and the Accord. Two down.

Next was Toyota. Talked with Ryan, the same salesman who handled Mr. and Mrs. ACK's recent transaction. They had nothing but praise for him-- and he was quite cool. He was our age or younger, friendly but not too friendly, and most of all, casual. No pressure whatsoever. So we muchly enjoyed test-driving the Corolla and the Camry, by gum, and even got my MOM in to test-drive an Echo. She's gonna come back in the fall to pick it up, she says. Ryan had a good day that day.

Then came Nissan. I had had a Micra waaaay back in 1990, and it was a good little car. So we drove the Sentra, and that was nice. However, we had to have them PAGE a salesman for fifteen minutes just to get any service whatsoever-- had we not been driven to the dealership (the one dealership we don't have down the street!) by Agent ACK, I'd have walked out on such sloppy service. OH yeah. Watch me vote with my FEET on how sucky the suckitude of Stadium Nissan in Calgary is. Screw, as they say, you guys.

So now it was decision time!

CHAPTER 4: DECISIONS and DEAL-BREAKERS

Right away my Dad, the financier, put the kibosh on the higher-end sedans like the Camry and the Accord. A little outta his price range. That was fine-- although he hadn't really given us a price range in the first place (why do people never set any boundaries until you bump up against them? It's the same in contract work for clients, too-- but that's a whole Rant unto itself.), we had enjoyed all our test-drives.

We nixed the Nissan partly because of the TERRIBLE service, and partly because the dealership wasn't handy to our neighborhood. There's nothing more excruciatingly boring than taking your car into your dealership for servicing and having nothing to do because you've got no car for 2-4 hours.

So okay: After a week of test-driving and comparing brochures, it was down to two cars: The Toyota Corolla and the Honda Civic. So Marci and I sat down one evening with a highlighter pen and went through, point by point, the option packages on these two vehicles. Turns out the Corolla offered more, and was WAY cheaper to boot. Plus we liked Ryan so much more than Smokey Bob. Plus the ACKs had bought a Toyota (and Agent ACK has owned Toyotas since he was 17) So there we had it: The Toyota Corolla would be our Car Of Choice.

And then we had to haggle. I DESPISE haggling. I was born and raised in North America, and I just want to go in and have the price be the price and then just be done with it.

But no. My father is a financial wizard; this man can make money sit up and beg, roll over, and do tricks before tucking itself into a progressive RRSP. And he wanted me to haggle.

Trouble was, Toyota has something called "Access Pricing." Long and short of it is, they don't haggle. The price is the price. Well, Dad M had a few things to say about that-- "price fixing is illegal," being one of them. And so for a week I went back and forth on the phone with Ryan saying the deal would fall through if they wouldn't knock off some magical number that my Dad had fixed in his head. $271.00, or the cost of a Dash Kit upgrade.

Ryan said Toyota wouldn't. I said Dad wouldn't pony up if this couldn't be met. Ryan told me that was too bad. My Dad told me to go to another dealership. Since I had no car to drive, I wasn't too keen on going all over town just to go through the same spiel at each place.

At this point, I was at the breaking point. All I wanted was the car that was OFFERED to me, goddammit, why was this turning into such a pain in the ass?

Doing a Cost Benefit Analysis, (something my Dad taught me to do by the way), I realized that the pain of dealing with this situation was worth more than the car was. I told my dad, with some regret, that if he would walk away from a deal over too much stress then I, too, should walk away from this deal with him over my stress about it.

His response: "Okay, good luck."

Well, that was a wrist-slitter. Now I had no car, no deal, and no happiness. I wanted to blow my own head off.

I slept on it, and in the morning realized that the whole thing was foolishness. I was NOT going to lose out on this deal just because of McAdam obstinacy-- mine, or my father's. I phoned him and told him I wanted to go ahead with this deal and that they were willing to come down in price over at Toyota.

Tickety-boo, the deal was back on. I resolved that I would pay the $271.00 MYSELF if they wouldn't deal. Just to get this matter closed and in the bag.

Now all we had to do was just go in and buy it. Simple, right? An afternoon's lark and voila.

But no. OH no. That would be too SIMPLE.

CHAPTER 5: NEOLITHIC INCOMPETENCE

It started innocently enough: Mrs. M and I went in to fill out forms and sign some papers with Trent, the guy in Accounting at Charlesglen Toyota. Mrs. M and I gave our information, and since Dad M was our primary financier, all we needed was for Toyota to send him some papers to sign. These were triplicate forms, so they couldn't be faxed-- he had to sign the papers themselves.

• Snag 1: My Dad lived in Winnipeg at the time. The papers would need to be sent to him there.
• Snag 2: My Dad would be at a conference in Halifax on the week in question.

Well, that was no problem-- the papers would be sent to his hotel in Halifax. We phoned his secretary in Winnipeg and got all the information. Huzzah! The papers would be sent and signed and returned, and we would have our car sometime around Wednesday of the following week.

Meantime, we changed our insurance over to the new car-- we managed to get the new car's serial number from Ryan-- and waited with bated breath for the papers to return.

Wednesday rolled around. No news. I phoned Trent and asked how the paper sending had gone. Turns out he hadn't sent them. "Pardon?" I asked. Apparently there was some sort of mix-up and he hadn't sent the papers to Halifax-- even after all the trouble we went to to get the address and impress upon him that time was a factor.

---

A QUICK INTRODUCTION TO BUCK

At this point, you understand, our suburban family of 3 had NO car whatsoever. My mother, bless her, gave us the use of her 1987 Dodge Aries K car, baby blue in color; it was nicknamed "Buck," as that is what it did after every single bump in the road. This car also ONLY had AM radio, meaning Buck was permanently stuck in the 50's, 60's and 70's musically. Buck also had bench seats, which meant that whoever was driving set the tone for how far the seat went back-- and the seat was broken, which meant it really only fit my mother and therefore when I drove it my knees were somewhere up by my ears.

Factor all this in and understand that every day's delay in getting my new car was slowly eroding my soul into a mass of bruised knees, wrist-slitting 70's ballads and the everpresent smell of Febreeze.

---

Now back to my story:

A week had gone by and I was beginning to become antsy. Deals like this could fall through at any point until the car was in one's hot little hands, and I began to fear it would do just that.

My Dad emailed me on Thursday to tell me he'd received the papers and that they were unacceptable. I phoned him to ask why, and it turns out that Trent, the accounting guy, had added several upgrade packages onto the price that I had SPECIFICALLY TURNED DOWN. Dad was furious; he was going to turn the deal down.

After all this, the idea that Dad might pull the plug because of an IDIOT working at a car dealership made me crazed. INSANE, I tell you.

I phoned Trent immediately: "What's going on, Trent? You assured me these would be sent out two weeks ago and they weren't. Now they've been sent out and they're incorrect," I said, keeping a tight rein on my voice and my temper.

Excuses and obfuscation followed, culminating with Trent claiming that he thought I had to come in and sign MORE papers.

"How can that be, Trent?" I asked, evenly if tightly. "I was IN YOUR OFFICE signing papers. Don't you think if there were more to sign you could have told me that at the time?"

"I don't think I like your tone, Mike."

S N A P .

I told him I'd speak to his manager about it and I got on the phone so fast I thought my numerical keypad would catch fire. I got a machine on the other end. I spoke in VERY clear, businesslike tones about how my deal for a $22,000 automobile was about to fall through due to one employee's neolithic incompetence (A phrase which here means, a level of unsatisfactory conduct only explained by having the brain of a Cro-Magnon man from the Neolithic Period. Feel free to use this phrase yourselves if you wish, Agents, I've got more).

I got a call back from Drew, the Customer Service manager, the next day. He was apologetic and swore he'd get to the bottom of this. I was unconvinced, but he told me that it didn't matter if I was spending five hundred or fifty thousand dollars, I was a customer and I should never, ever have been treated like that.

Damn RIGHT. I've got a rant about Customer Service in today's retail marketplace, but that too I will address another time. Suffice it to say, these were words that I NEEDED TO HEAR.

After speaking with Trent, Drew said he didn't know what had happened and began to apologize, but I cut him off. I said that there were new rules: I did not want to deal with Trent ever again, didn't want him anywhere near this deal. I said I wanted new papers COURIERED to my Dad that day, and I wanted this deal in the bag by Friday.

Drew assured me that not only would this happen, but that he would throw in the first oil change on my car for free and come down in price for one Dash Kit, Aluminum.

Well, shit fire and save matches, kids, it looked like we had ourselves a deal.

But wait, there's more.

CHAPTER 6: WAITING and RESOLUTION

Now I just had to wait for the papers to come back, and they would order the car (A silver 2003 Toyota Corolla-- Mrs. M and I wanted black at first, but there were only two in the country, both in Ontario, at the time) to the lot.

We waited for another week. Then ANOTHER week.

That made a total of FOUR WEEKS since our Dodge first died, and still we were waiting on a car.

I'd had it. This was CANADA-- you buy something, you GET it, what's the deal?? I phoned Ryan and said that I was paying insurance for a car I did not have, and was still waiting to have, and that here is what I wanted:

"Either fax the papers to my Dad today, get a FAX signature, and proceed from there until the real papers come in;

"Give me my car NOW and let me drive it around, since I'm insured on it;

"...or, give me a loaner car until MY car comes in."

I hated that I, the customer, had to be the one to come up with options to give the dealership on how to please me. But they came up with the loaner car the very next day, and finally I could release Buck back to my mother and drive last year's model of the car I was going to get.

Four days later, we GOT OUR CAR. By this point I was just crying delirious tears of joy. I shook Ryan's hand, mumbled happy noises through his long story about his first car deal and drove away.

We had more snags with the registration but finally got that resolved, too-- five weeks from loss of old car to acquisition of new one, but by God we GOT THERE.

This is a long, drawn-out story, Agents, and I'm aware of that. But I needed to get it out so that I won't relive it every time I close my eyes at night.

The car is a dream, by the way. We called it "Bounty," both for the reaping a huge reward connotation as well as the fact that it is The Quicker Picker-Upper when compared to our old Dodge.

The moral of this story, Agents? BE ASSERTIVE. Do NOT trust anyone else to do what they're paid to do; you are the customer, and it is your God-given right to harass, annoy, and badger the retailer until you get everything you want. THEY aren't doing YOU a favor by serving you; YOU are doing THEM a favor by giving them your business. NEVER forget that, EVER.

And treasure good salespeople. They're rare.
PUNISH bad employees. Tell their supervisors ALL about your bad experience-- in this fashion, you will help to weed out the morons.

Posted by Agent M at August 04, 2003 11:35 AM