So the past week has been centered around cars (and not the movie). Last week the local Toyota dealership was running a "sale" at the mall and since I work across the street a Dodge Avenger caught my eye.
Initially I had eliminated the Dodge Avenger because it didn't come with push start ignition. But since it was there, I figured it wouldn't hurt to check it out.
I got to the mall and popped the hood to the Avenger and it had exactly what I wanted... the 3.6L Pentastar V6.
So I checked out the car, and the saleswoman sent me on a test drive. This engine does exactly what I want it to. After getting used to the torque steer, this car became fun to drive. I actually haven't liked driving a car so much since the Pontiac G6 GXP.
So I took it and showed my mom, then off to the mechanic. It was a 2011, so I didn't really expect there to be any problems with it, but he did a complete inspection of the car. Since my mechanic is a Mopar man, he gave the car two thumbs up and sent me on my way.
So the asking price last saturday was $15,995. This is more than I wanted to spend, and it was missing key features I wanted (push start and heated seats).
So I left the car. I headed down to the local Dodge dealership and they had three Avengers there, all with heated seats. Of course they had them priced wrong (the sign said $8870 for one, and $9995 for the other two... seriously I was about to buy two cars). But the salesman said they were the wrong price and wouldn't sell them to me.
So the next day I went to see the other car I've had a crush on since the salesmen made me drive it -- the Hyundai Sonata 2.0T. This has the features I love, and more (rear heated seats). I took this car to see my mom, then back to the dealership. They were going to sell it to me for $30,000 out the door. I had to sleep on it, since I only wanted to spend $15k.
The next day I went back and said I wasn't going to get it, since it was double what I planned on spending. I could afford the payments, if I continued to live at home.
So since then I've been attempting to prep my car for trade. She's an old girl, but has several upgrades that I wanted to take out (they cost a fortune and could be used on my mom's car). I have an aftermarket CD player in my car so I wanted to put the original radio back in, since I wasn't getting anything extra for my car with a CD player. But alas we can't locate the original radio. This actually doesn't really bother me. I'm not sure I could even install the CD player into my mom's car, and all newer cars come with high end radios anyways.
Well today I woke up and found out they dropped the price on the Avenger to $14,995. I'm stoked! They really want to get rid of the car (it's been sitting on their lot for months) and this puts me in the upper hand! I want to get the car $15,000 out the door, which, unless they are absolutely unreasonable, they will be able to do if I trade in my car. But I'm still going to try to get the car even less than that. I know they want to get rid of it.
So tomorrow I'm going back to make an offer. Then, I hope, we can negotiate the cost to $15,000 out the door or less.
So wish me luck! (Actually, with my luck they will sell the car today. *knock on wood.)
If this goes through this will be the second car I've purchased since I got my license over ten years ago!
