The Mystery Revealed

OK, I got a bee in my bonnet a couple of weeks ago. My car, a Ford Escort, isn’t that old, but isn’t that new anymore either. I’ve recently had to start shelling out some medium sized bucks to keep the car in repair. New tires, a new headlight casing … that sort of thing. It starts to add up rapidly. Add to that the fact that I knew from my last inspection that I was going to need new brakes in a matter of months, and I began to wonder if maybe it wasn’t time to be sinking money into something newer and therefore more reliable.

Now, mind you, I was just toying with the idea. I really didn’t have any intention of doing anything about it yet. But still … I’d been talking to The Socialist a lot recently about one particular kind of car I was taken with. It isn’t a luxury car, but it certainly would cost more than any new car I’d ever purchased before, even taking into account inflation. I decided on Saturday (my impulsive day) to just visit a dealership and take one for a test drive.

I told the dealer up front he wasn’t going to be making any sale off of me, that I was just looking and gathering information for some undesignated time in the future. I had a really nice gentleman waiting on me, who I’ll call Norman. Norman gladly let me take an ’03 for a spin. It was an absolutely fantastic vehicle … unlike anything I’d ever driven before. Of course, the one he showed me was loaded with goodies (like a GPS system) that I had absolutely no use for. Ignoring the bells and whistles, it was still a car I could come to love. I just couldn’t love one yet. The price wasn’t bad, but it was still a hair out of reach for me. I thanked Norman kindly, took the information brochures and his card that he handed to me, and promised him that I’d be in touch when I was ready, though that probably wouldn’t be for months yet.

Monday night (my rash day) Norman called me with some prices he’d worked up that I’d asked for. Indeed, the car was a bit out of reach yet, and I told him so. That’s when he informed me they still had a few ’02’s on the lot, and they needed to be rid of them because the ’04’s were coming in soon. He told me he’d sell me an ’02 for invoice. And the price, when he quoted it, was just within reach, if I was willing to finance a part of it. I asked him to tell me what the monthly charge would be if I put X amount of dollars down, and he said he’d get back to me shortly. Sure enough, in the space of ten minutes we were back on the phone. I’d set a mental limit of how much I could afford to spend on a car payment every month, and this came in $50 below that limit. He told me the car was dark blue (my second color choice), had a CD player (though not the 6 CD deluxe model) and didn’t have many other fancy trappings. I broke. I told him I’d be in to sign the papers Wednesday night.

Wednesday (my reap what I’ve sown except it had weevils in it day) I showed up at the dealer ship. We checked the car out, and it looked great except for the fact that the front left hubcap was badly scraped. Norman looked chagrinned – he’d personally checked the car himself and hadn’t seen that. He promised to get it replaced, and we made tentative arrangements for me to come back Saturday morning to get it put on. We then went inside and did all the paperwork, which took forever.

When we were finally done, we went back outside and he reviewed a few of the things in the car for me. I looked at the radio/tape deck and asked where you inserted the CD. He looked up at me and said, “This car doesn’t come with a CD player.” I was of course disappointed, but not being pushy, wasn’t going to pursue it further. It was the Socialist who reminded him that he’d said it came with a single CD player. He shook his head, and I chimed in that he had indeed told me that on the phone. He said, “No, I said it came with a radio and CD player.”. The Socialist and I looked at each other, and back at him. At just that moment he realized what he’d said. He’d obviously intended to say “tape deck”, but said “CD player” again, just as he had Monday night. He was still embarrassed about the hubcap incident, and said he’d make good on the CD player and see that we were given the six CD player at cost. Evidently you can only get the single CD player as a factory install option, and this was the only player that could be installed by the dealership. I was still equivocating, but the Socialist said he’d get it for me for my combined birthday and Christmas presents. Both The Socialist and Norman looked please by this, and so what could I do but thank them both profusely.

By then it was getting time for the dealership to close. Norman handed me the keys, still apologizing, and we promised to get in touch with each other to confirm the time I’d be showing up for the hubcap. I spent the next ten or so minutes acquainting myself with headlights, windshield wipers and radio, and then we were off.

We didn’t get far though. Shortly after leaving the parking lot, the car started making a fair amount of noise, as though something were rubbing. And the steering wheel was all wrong; you had to turn it to two o’clock to go straight, and the feel was “loose” with the car very unresponsive. It was a new car, and it took me a mile or so to convince myself that this just wasn’t something about a new car that was OK and I should get used to. The final convincing blow was when I made a right hand turn and it felt as though I’d lost all control of the car. I pulled over into a parking lot and called the dealership. They had closed; no one answered the phone.

Norman had given me his cell phone number, so I called that. I know my voice was shaky and he started sounding shaky himself as I described the problem. He asked if I could make it home in the car OK, and I told him I thought so if I took it slowly, but that there was no way this car could make the return trip. He made me promise to call him as soon as I got home, that he’d worry until he heard from us. It took a long time, but around 11:00 pm we made it home and I called him. He was frantic because he thought we’d be home long before then. You could hear the relief in his voice.

He promised to send a tow truck out to get the car first thing in the morning, and have a rental car delivered at the same time so I’d have something to drive while this was being worked on. I agreed, though it meant having to use the Socialist’s second car, a ’95 Metro Geo with well over 100,000 miles on it and broken power steering, to get to work.

I was disappointed, of course. I had told everyone I was getting a new car, and had been looking forward to showing it off. Still, I wasn’t angry at the dealership. Pardon the expression, but shit happens, and what matters is if they make good on it. Norman was obviously going out of his way to see that I was taken care of properly.

And indeed, the next morning, shortly after nine o’clock, Norman called me at work. “You’re getting a completely new car,” he told me. “I informed my manager that no matter what was wrong with this car, the customer would never trust it again because it was bad off the lot. And, if it were your wife, would you want her driving this car?” And so this evening, when I went back to the dealership to sign the new paperwork, I received the keys to my brand new and gorgeously perfect car. Norman was still infuriated by what happened – evidently the kids the dealership hired to do the final cleaning of the cars before the customers pick them up must have whallopped a curb or some other such thing, and not only scuffed the hubcab but broken the wheel mechanism. The wheel wasn’t turning, and everything was pushed to the right behind it, explaining all the problems I was experiencing. He told me that when I arrived he’d been in with the service manager, chewing the kids out, and that the service manager was still doing so even as I was signing the new paperwork. He then told The Socialist that the new CD player would be at cost, with no service charges for installation. When I looked over my new car, it had a few things the first car hadn’t, like a trunk mat (costs extra) and painted pin striping (not the tape kind). All no charge. The car wasn’t just beautiful; it was magnificent.

And so here I am, with my wonderful new hybrid gas/electric Toyota Prius:

It was a long hard row to hoe, but all I can say is that if you judge a company by its service (which I do), then this dealership is probably the best I’ve ever purchased from. The road to my new Prius may have had a fair number of disappointing moments, but the end result is probably the coolest car I’ve ever owned or will own again.

I’m a happy camper.