a long ass tale with a happy ending

well, gather 'round folks. i gots a story i'd likes to tell ya.

ways back in ought-zero at the very end, some asshole stole and then totaled my fine jeep vehicle. so at the very beginning of ought-one, i done acquired me this new fordy vehicle. it was a fine vehicle, but it was lacking in some ways, and because of that asshole, i's never fully loved that fordy vehicle. it served me well, but i's never forgot my fine jeep vehicle.

christ that's hard. so anyways, the last weekend of march, my over-drive light started flashing at me, which is always an ominous sign. transmission repairs aren't cheap, and as i wasn't thrilled at the idea of paying to fix something that i was planning on replacing shortly anyways, i hoped that it would last a little while longer. the transmission had other ideas and as i drove home from our woburn office, a simple turn onto a cross street gave me an odd sensation as i physically felt the transmission slip. it didn't help that it was rainy, but when made a 2nd turn to head home, the transmission slipped again and then proceeded to not want to shift properly. i knew i was in trouble, and hoped like hell that it would last long enuff to get me home. i just needed to limp 3.2 miles home.

made it thru the first of 3 traffic lights ok. had to stop at the 2nd. problem - first of 3 inclines, and each was progressively worse. light turned green and the transmission was REALLY unhappy at this point and i knew i was in a lot more trouble than i originally thought. i pulled off to the side to give the cars behind me a chance to get by, and hoped that the transmission would play nice for another 1.5 miles.

the 2nd major incline has a traffic light right past the crest and i started to get nervous about having to stop on the hill. i figured i could get enuff momentum to get up the hill, but it tends to back up during rush hour. it was unhappy, but i lucked out and was able to get over the crest before stopping. rolling downhill helped get things rolling and then i had to face the final incline - ~4/10 of a mile. it's not a particularly steep hill, but it's long, even longer with a dying car.

i gunned it as best i could (pushing the 4000-4500rpm, redline = 6000rpm), hoped that no one would pull out in front of me and the fates were kind to me. 4 quick turns later, i rolled into the driveway and stopped.

so, there you have it. the dying drive of the Ex. yesterday, M&i went car shopping again, and i wasn't determined to buy something yesterday, there was certainly a need. the plan was to look at the Rav4 and the CR-V, so we started out with the Rav4. M&i had both looked over Cars.com and i had spotted a 06 in watertown, so we headed there first. test drove a Rav4 Limited which had all of the bells and whistles i would like, but the price on it was too high.

M&i have a tip for you - if you are looking at a particular used car on the web (cars.com, vehix, whatever), at the very least write down the basic specs (model, year, miles, PRICE). printing is better. we discovered at both placed we went to, that the price on the car, is NOT the price on the website. i don't think that either of us was too surprised, but they certainly will not volunteer that w/o you prodding them.

also, if you have several similar cars to what you are looking for that are at different dealers, use that to your advantage during negotiations. they know that people will comparison shop, so that gives you leverage.

anyways, we headed over to another dealer to look at a Rav4 that was in a color that i wanted (ideally i wanted the dark blue, but realized quickly that used limits color choice really quickly). they had sold it and had only 2 07s on the lot (black and silver). we were greeted by a typical fast talking, loud, sales person, but he (thankfully) passed us off to the more soft spoken, less obnoxious jeff the sales guy.

we discussed with him what we were looking for and he explained how they worked - they buy used cars at auction, primarily from rental companies, so the cars don't have a ton of mileage. i think slimy sales guy said if it had ~10k miles, it came from a rental company, if it had more, it was a different avenue, short term lease i guess.

so we looked at the black and silver Rav4s, both were base models, no major bells or whistles (farewell auto-dimming mirror and sunroof), so i drove the silver. didn't hear the rattle in this one that we did in the first one i drove, and at that point, it was time to talk.

M is much better at the negotiation game than i am, so i let her control most of that. we both knew what i wanted and was willing to pay. we even walked up to the new car dealer (up the hill) to look at the prices for the 08s of similar base model, and decided that the 07 with ~11k miles was worth the $2-4k in savings. we finalized our game plan and headed back. we spoke to jeff the sales guy, presented our offer (we pay X, they eat the dealer and plate transfer fees, we pay sales tax), he asked how we arrived at the offer, M explained, he left.

he returned with their counter (200 less than original, we eat dealer and plate transfer fees).

M gave him this wonderful, brilliant, amazing look of disgust/offense/WTF/we're leaving that RATTLED jeff the sales guy. my eyes darted to him and i watched his whole posture DROP. eyes, face, shoulders, EVERYTHING. and it wasn't an act, it was as if she landed a beautiful right hook in the side of his head and he went limp. it was GLORIOUS. fortunately, like most poker players, i was keeping my head down, but i had a hard time keeping from smiling. and it took him a moment to try and recompose himself. all he could do was ask how we had arrived at our number, and M calmly explained (with a nice undertone of menace) our reasons, and off he went.

~10 minutes later, he came back and congratuated us, and he was very quick to shake her hand first. part of it may have been she was closer to him, but he looked at her first when he came back.

so, we were there nearly 3 hours. and now i have a new car waiting for me. tomorrow i get to call insurance, and the bank to see what their car rates are, but i'll have it tuesday night after work so long as all goes according to plan.

i had to laugh this morning when M called to say she was going to be early this morning - i chided her for being later than i had originally thought yesterday. i wanted to deal with the server issue early as that had brought me to woburn in the first place friday afternoon (rebuilding RAID arrays take a long time). but this morning she was quick to point out that had she been early, we wouldn't have had lunch at the greek place, where we wouldn't have found out what the recipe is for their wonderful salad dressing, which in turn wouldn't have landed us where we were at the time we were to talk to jeff the sales guy where i ultimately ended up buying a new car. because had we timed it differently, we could have ended up with the loud and obnoxious sales guy and we would have left to go somewhere else.

additionally, it meant that by my taking back roads to get home, i didn't get stranded in the middle of rush hour traffic on a major highway, so i am left to wonder what the fates have in store for me. this weekend certainly yielded a significant number of positives that were all started by a 330pm call from PA to tell me that their server was acting up again.

so the best part of it all is that i'm pleased with the new car and we now know the secret to a really delicious greek salad dressing.

the secret ingredient is ****BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ****