Yesterday, we went out looking at our three top contenders: Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic Hybrid, and Mazda 3. After visiting a few too many dealerships and enduring some tense test drives with weary old salesmen, we zeroed in on the Mazda. It's a sleek, sporty little car that gets just as good gas mileage as the Corolla but is way more fun to drive. As one of the Mazda dealers put it, "it's a performance company," which I guess is sales-speak for "you won't feel like you're driving a rental car."
We'd even identified the individual car we wanted to buy: a dark red 2010 model, still new but unsold, with a sunroof and kicked-up speakers. We hadn't gotten a chance to drive that particular car since it was only put into play as we were leaving the dealership, but the sales manager at that location gave us a decently good price for it that we kept simmering on the back burner. Later in the afternoon, as we were winding down for the day, we called him back to check that number, and he'd lowered it by $500.
So I figured we were on a roll. We knew that they wanted to move it off their lot, since they were now trying to sell their new 2011s, and he'd already shown a willingness to drop the price. It was still a bit higher than what we wanted, so we planned to visit there first thing this morning, test drive the actual car, and get it down a little lower so that we could seal the deal.
The first part of the plan went fine. They had a little trouble locating the car on their lot since they'd had to shift around their inventory due to the snow, but once they did we were able to take it onto the highway and test out the stereo system. It's a great little car, and handling is really nice.
But things didn't go quite our way in the negotiations. The offer from late yesterday was still on the table, but when we tried to get them to lower it a bit, the sales manager got huffy about his bottom line. We'd done enough research by this point to know what a fair price was, and we knew that he could possibly meet us halfway if he wanted to. So we asked him to make us a counter-offer, but he refused. We walked out.
So now it's not so much "car shopping" as it is "psychological warfare." I don't feel bad for walking out when we did, since we really don't want to pay the higher price, but I'm bummed. I know that it's all in the game, and Michael is convinced they'll call back and give us a better number, but I'm not so sure. Guess I wasn't cut out for this kind of hard-nosed negotiation; I get too attached. And I'm sure that we'll end up with a great car no matter what happens. But it's hard not to feel disappointed. So I'm going to put it out of my mind for now and focus on happier things --- like my super-stretch circus class tonight, at which I'm finally going to get myself to do a split. At least some things are under my control.
UPDATE, 9:15 pm: As I predicted, the Mazda dealer has not called us back. But I'm in better spirits after my workout (though my poor hip flexors are not!), and I've almost let it go. Almost. Meanwhile, Michael, being the ever resourceful Googler that he is, has come up with some other options for us to test-drive before we resign ourselves to the ultra-sensible and utterly practical Corolla. There's the new Ford Fiesta, and a few small VWs that seem to get good gas mileage (including, improbably, the New Beetle), and we haven't even looked into the Hyundai Sonata or whatever. Although I was hoping to have this wrapped up by the new year, I think I'll be OK if it's not. At least now we'll have more of a chance to try out our options without feeling rushed.
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