There are few processes in life that cause as much knock down, drag out stress and anxiety as having a baby. Except for car shopping, which is a hundred times worse. For instance, I’ve watched ‘Jon and Kate Plus 8′ with mild envy because, despite having an overabundance of children, hundreds of weekly diapers, and constant screaming, car shopping is probably a snap for them considering a) there aren’t a lot of options for 10 seated vehicles (AstroVan, bus, or clown car) and b) any car dealer would give them the best deal after 5 minutes of those terrors romping around the showroom while ‘Mommy and Daddy negotiate with the tall car man.’ But regardless of the difficulty, Chi-Baba demanded new ‘wheels’, and his/her insatiable desire/gas put considerable pressure on us to get it done.
Our own foray into this nasty business was fraught with shifty salesmen, broken promises, lost deposits, tense negotiations, brief moments of clarity, and one clearly hungover salesman that closed the deal.
It was Kim that was enthused about the prospect of replacing our Honda Fit with something bigger – and on the ride home from Utica she appealed to me in the one way that can convince me to do something I don’t want to – she offered to do all the work. Find the car, check it out, test drive, etc. When she found one she really liked, she’d bring me into the process. I assumed that this would take a few weeks for her to process, and anything I can put off, I definitely do.
Thus it should be of no surprise that when I returned home from work 2 days later, a silver 2005 Honda CR-V was sitting in the driveway, on loan from the dealer. So much for a few weeks.
The Honda wasn’t much of a surprise – it was the car Kim wanted when we bought the fit before – the difference this time was that she wasn’t driving two hours every day to work and we could actually stomach lower gas mileage. Chi-Baba signaled his/her approval during the last ultrasound, when he/she formed the Honda symbol with its ribcage – although the technician said that she could not say with certainty whether it was Honda or Hyundai.
What followed was one of those things that just makes you fall out of love with humanity. To sum it up, we returned with the car to the dealer, who eventually got us to agree to put down money to hold the car while we got it checked out by a mechanic.
This was, in retrospect, a mistake. Despite repeated questions of refundability, and assurances that ‘we don’t hold your deposit hostage’, and ‘whether we sell you the car or not, we want you to have a good experience with us,’ and laughably ‘our reputation is what matters most to us,’ in the end things turned out badly. The aforementioned ‘fluid’ issue made us momentarily decide against the car, and the deal fell through. When we told them we didn’t want the car, they stalled and said to come back during business hours to get our money. When Kim did, they declared that because the car had been off the lot for a few days, they decided to keep the deposit.
Anger ensued, and still ensues. We are presently charging them back for our deposit, and I am hard at work writing our story to every ‘dealer rating site I can find.’ I also spit on every Subaru I pass in the parking lot, as well as my bosses BMW (that has nothing to do with the car dealer – though – just makes me feel good.)
So at this point we were still driving a car that was too small for our monster truck sized stroller, out $100, and pissed at the car dealer community in general. Also my mouth was super dry – from all the spitting. A few chance phone calls and one inebriated salesman would change that for us.
