vaaaaaaaaaan

We were thinking about keeping this on a need to know basis, because we're
a little embarrassed, but hey, this is what blogs are for, right?

We got us a van. Yep, we're those people.

We've been thinking about it for awhile. With two car seats in the Passat, only a stick figure can fit in between them in the back, which means anytime we have visitors, we're taking two cars. And we get a lot of visitors. We both pretty much reached the breaking point after Lara's sister's visit last week, when someone would have to take me to work and pick me up every day, because they needed both cars.

So, anyhow, we decided, hey, we'll just go look. You know how it goes. I perused the autotrader, and noticed that the local Toyota dealer had a couple of used Toyota vans, plus a Honda. Extra bonus, we could look at both without hitting two dealers. So we headed for Pedersen's.

I should point out, once we told Anya what we were doing, she was the only one really excited about the process. Little did she know. I don't think she was quite so excited by the end of the day. Our first stroke of luck came when we arrived at the dealer. This is always the worst part, you get out, and the pack of five or so saleguys standing in front of the door all look over at you, with a hungry look in their eyes. So we go over, and through some unknown process, one of them chooses us, and says hi. We mumble something about vans, he asks if we want new or used, and we say, well, new or a little bit used.

So, any salesperson worth his or her salt is going to steer us toward the new ones, right? Nope, not this one. Shocker #1. And he was nice. And not slimy. Turns out, through dumb luck, we got one of the internet salespeople.

Most dealers, these days, have an internet sales department. They're the ones that respond if you contact the dealer by email. By and large, they assume you've done your research, and that you'll be cross shopping them against every other dealer in the area. So, they tend to just give you a good price up front, and not go through all of the awful car dealer crap. They tend to be good people.

So, I should have called ahead and made an appointment with internet sales, but I didn't. Which means, I deserved a crap salesperson, but today we got lucky, because on Saturdays internet salespeople have to stand around at the door with everyone else.

So, anyhow. We looked at vans. The Toyotas first, since it's a Toyota dealer, after all. Two, side by side, pretty much the same. Same year, same "option level". One was a little nicer looking, cleaner, lower miles, had a few more options. Oh, and it was cheaper. Wha? According to our friendly salesguy, it had been there for longer, so they started knocking the price down. Okay, sounds good. So, it was nice. No real complaints.

So then we walked the half mile or so to the back lot to check out the Honda. We may have been swayed just a bit by the fact that it was ugly. (White exterior, brownish interior). Also, the seats just weren't very comfortable. We gave it a half-hearted looking over, but we just weren't real interested. So we headed back to the Toyota again.

At this point, we were ready to take it for a drive. Some friends of ours just bought a van, and they spent four hours at two dealerships test driving them. Part of the problem was that they took turns on the test drive, one driving, while the other hung out at the dealership with the kids. Sounds like fun, right? Well, we didn't really want to do this, so we figured we'd just have Lara go for the drive, since, for the most part, she'll be the one driving it. But the salesguy was like, aren't you all going to come? So we figured, okay, if he wants us to strap in the carseats, I guess we'll do it. Once we had moved everything over, I proceded to climb in between the carseats, but the salesguy was like, no, you sit up front, I'll sit back here. Really? You want to sit in the back, between our two kids? Okay...

So we tooled on down Harmony, pulled off so I could drive, and tooled on back. Not the most inspiring drive, but not bad, for a van. By this time, lunch was calling, and the kiddos were tired, so we went back home to stress out. We sure liked the van, but this was all happening so fast. That's typical for us, but still... I did some research, we did some talking, I did some research, we did some talking.

And let me point out, since at this point you probably think we're crazy. Yes, we're crazy. But also, we'd been thinking about this for a long time. Planning on this, even. We knew we were getting a van, we just didn't know when. I had already read the reviews, printed out the brochures, the whole nine yards. I obsess. It's what I do. So it's not like we were totally going off half-cocked. (I'm not defensive. What do you mean? Not defensive at all.)

But enough of the excuses. Back to the story.

We decided, when the kids got up, to go to the VW dealership. We like volkswagens (we've got two of them), and they've got a new van (the "routan"). Thing is, it isn't really a VW, it's more like a Chrysler with a VW badge. Plus, they just came out, so we'd have to buy it brand new. But, to feel like we'd explored the options, we stopped by. Well, it kind of sucked. Seats weren't very comfortable, didn't seem like anything special, didn't have the eight seats like the Toyota, etc. We humored the salesman until it didn't seem so awkward, then left.

Back to Toyota. Our plan was to sit in it one more time, then see about holding it until Monday so we could sleep on it. Our salesguy from before was with another customer, so we got another, surprisingly nice, internet salesperson. He answered our questions, left us alone for awhile, just basically was nice.

One bit of data we found out, our original salesguy was in the process of selling the first van we looked at. Remember the one? More miles, ugly color, cost more? We were like, are you sure? Are you sure he isn't selling *our* van? (see what we did just there?) We hadn't bought it, hadn't even decided if we were going to buy it, and all of a sudden we were terrified someone else came in and snatched it away from us.

We halfheartedly asked about waiting until Monday, but really, we just wanted the thing, and it didn't take much to talk us into buying it that night.

Perhaps a word here about bargaining. I hate it. I love to get the cheap price, but I'm so painfully uncomfortable with bargaining. I just don't even know where to start. But I know the dealership *knows* I don't want to bargain, and they're quite happy to separate me from my money. Partially, it isn't even about the money. I mean, it is, but more than that, I don't want to be the idiot. If I go in there and pay what they're asking, without even trying to talk them down, I'm the idiot, and I don't want to be the idiot.

Anyhow, long story short, I knew there wasn't going to be much bargaining to be done, because internet sales already gives you a good price to start with. But there's a good price, and then there's a good price, you know? So I mumbled something about how the price was okay, but not great, and it would sure "help our decision" if it was a little lower. He threw me a bone, $400 cheaper. Not earth shattering, but at least I didn't feel like the idiot.

So anyhow, with that extra bit of motivation, we decided that, really, we didn't want to come back another time, and really, we weren't going to change our minds. So yeah, we bought the thing.

There's a whole 'nother blog post of story about how annoying it was to buy the stupid thing, but I'll cut this off for now, it's long enough already. Suffice to say we drove it home that same night.

Anybody want to buy a sweet Passat wagon? It's got a turbo!