Little Red Corvette

I've been driving a 13-year-old Mazda with 140,000 miles. It's been a good car. Well, up until about 125,000 miles. That last 15,000 was a different story. During that time it burned oil. Drank oil. Consumed oil to the tune of a quart a week. And all that oil had to go somewhere. Some dripped out underneath. But a lot burned off. Every time I drove the car it looked like a rolling smoke screen. Mothers would move their children to the other side of the street when they saw me coming. Other drivers pointed and laughed. And I finally had to admit it was time for a new car.

Well, not a new car. But new to me. So we started the process of used car shopping. And we had our shtick down pretty good. I would tell the dealer what we wanted. My wife told him what we didn't want. I would ask questions if the potential car looked good. My wife would get us out the door if it was clear the salesman was wasting our time.

And some really did! The Toyota first unnamed dealer was clearly not interested in selling a used car. The first salesman asked us to wait while he got someone to help us. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally some guy came out and led us out to the lot. And he gave us the Lightning Round Tour of the lot, pointing quickly at cars, quoting a price, and moving on. He always walked about 10 feet in front of us. He never paused for us to look at any car. And we couldn't get out of there fast enough.

The Hyundai next dealer asked what we wanted and told us he had exactly the car for us. He pulled it around...and it did seem perfect. Used but not too much mileage. Nice condition. We hopped in and drove for a bit and it handled well. Great...let's talk cash. Now keep in mind, when we walked in, the first words out of my mouth were "I want a decent used car and I want to get out the door for under $12,000". But the non-negotiable price he whipped out was $14,999. Huh? Did he not hear us? Or did he just ignore us? Did he think we would kick in an extra $3000 just cause he was a nice guy? Not a chance. Bad salesman. No deal. We walked.

But there were a couple of guys who did try to meet our needs. The Mazda dealer showed us cars that met our needs...just a big high in mileage. The Kia dealer had a very nice car. We went home to think about it. Decided to go for it. Called back a couple of days later. Someone else had already put a deposit put on it.

And then we went to another Hyundai dealer. We told him what we wanted. He said he had three cars that met our requirements. We looked. We drove. And in fact, two of the three were perfect. The third was pretty good too...but a little higher in mileage. So the guy who actually listened and showed us what we wanted...made a sale!

Oh...not a little red corvette though. A little red Accent. We just call it "Little Red". Perfect for getting to work and back every day. Welcome to a smoke free ride!