I did the math, and I've bought 13 new cars. That's nuts. Of those, I had to negotiate a deal for 10 of them (the other three were Tesla online orders). The first one, a Toyota Corolla that I leased right out of college, was not a very good deal, because I didn't know what I was doing. But my dad filled me in on all of the dumb shit that they do after that, and I'd consider him an expert since he sold retail loans through a bank. My next car was also a Corolla, and it was an OK deal.
Car #6 was actually Diana's Hyundai Elantra circa 2008. We were living together by then, but just starting to commingle our finances. It was her name on the loan, but I kind of took the lead on negotiating because, well, I just found it sporting. The circumstances that day were ideal though, because the dealer wasn't busy, it was late in the day, late in the month, and instead of doing the "ask my manager" dance, the manager sat down with us. We got it below the invoice, knowing what the dealer incentives were and such, and I had worn down the guy. As people started disappearing, he got pretty candid. "Look, this is the margin we're going to be left with, and I gotta give this guy [the sales rep] something, and we need to pay for the Taj Mahal here [the new dealership]." I felt pretty good about it, and I think he just wanted us to get out of his showroom. We had that car until 2014, when the transmission blew, but was replaced under Hyundai's excellent warranty. That's when we experimented with our first EV, the Leaf.
That was a pretty terrible experience, but it ended right. A young dude was doing "Internet sales" at the time, and he wanted to do right by us. We were going to lease, because going electric, with a car rated for an 84 mile range, carried some uncertainty. I was all-in, because average American commutes can easily accommodate that range, which is what you do 99% of the time. And you could squeeze out 110 miles when you weren't using AC. You charge at home. In any case, we left that dealer without a deal, and the three of us went to a Tijuana Flats down the road. While eating, I got a text from the dude, saying that his manager agreed to the cap cost I wanted. That's the actual cost of the car, plus fees and tax and such. (Pro tip: If you're gonna lease, don't even bring it up... negotiate the price of the car only, regardless of trade and financing, then use that as the cap cost for a lease.) I think I agreed to put down $6,000, and our lease payment was like $105. And what we got is what I hoped for... they let us keep extending the lease. Our per-month cost was stupid low.
Anyway, I'm in a spot now where I have to acquire another car. My kid is 16, I don't think he'll go to college, so I have to figure out how best to set him up for success. I know that part of that absolutely involves him having reliable transportation. I got along without a car until late in my junior year of college, but my (home) parents never even pushed me to get my license, and that's still infuriating. He has his license, because we pushed for it, and now he needs a car, even if it's just for school. Ideally for a part-time job.
Before I got laid-off, my intention was to buy a sweet car for me, and give him mine, which is now 5-years-old. While I wasn't working, I hoped that maybe I could just find him a cheap-ass EV, like a first-gen Leaf. Going down that road has been difficult, because used car dealers are shitty and shady. So I'm back to looking for a replacement for my car. Disenchanted with Tesla build quality and screens and capacitive buttons, I'm targeting a Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Kia EV6, which are built on the same platform and roughly equivalent. At one point I thought about something more luxury, like a BMW i4, but they discontinued it in favor of a future i3, and it's still too expensive. The Hyundai/Kia is stacked with cool tech, which is what I'm really interested in over luxury.
So today's work is to try and land one of those. Going back to those earlier experiences, the reality is that my brain is wired to want the thing, but not make it an emotional issue. And that's real, because even going back to that experience with Diana buying the Hyundai, I was ready to walk away at any point. The dirty little secret is that while it's not emotional, per se, it is not without cost. My brain considers any challenge or not getting what I want as a personal affront to me. I logically know it's not, but some combination of my teenage bullying and my wiring to be logical and right feels shitty. The whole thing is not without cost.
I'm at a good news/bad news situation. I fully understand the scenario with Hyundai for what I want, but the two local dealers I was talking to don't have the cars in the trim I want. One gave me a full on offer with the right numbers that would ultimately allow me to buy in cash (a lifetime first, I would add). The details are unimportant for now, but I "won" as I wanted to. A legit EV and the deal I wanted. So I've started to look toward the Kia equivalent, which is the same "skateboard" but with a somewhat different shell on top. Three players in the Orlando market, but the first one I contacted is bullshitting me to the nth degree and kept insisting that I come in to chat, which I absolutely will not do. I'm trying to hand them a softball, with all of the right terms that make it (theoretically) a profitable score for them. (I'll come back to that if I can land what I want.) And this fucker wouldn't budge.
Again, in the long term, I know that I can likely get what I want, but the psychological overhead is taxing to say the least. The explicitly logical part of my head is pleased at doing the right things, but the feeling that I'm being fucked with is expensive. I just don't like being fucked with.
Hopefully I'll soon have a good story to share at the end. Mind you, that good story will be loaded with detail about how fucking expensive it is to have a teenager who drives. The upside is that the various AI agents have the ability to discover all of the angles and coach you on this. Maybe I need to just have them outright work on my behalf.
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