The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking: A not-so-odd car buying experience

Today is the 10th. Not an especially odd day, by anyone's standards. You don't need to be a mathematician to see how even the number 10 is, but what the heck. I'll write anyway.

Today I am going to write about cars.

Last year I gave our nice Jetta to my brother because he ended up with a surprise baby at the age of 47 and he was driving a nasty, bumpity old Jimmy truck that no baby should be in. My brother is always stretched-out financially and at that time he prioritized that a new baby needed a house to live in (versus his King West studio with the awesome view and awesomer bar scene). With that new mortgage and all those diapers suddenly upon my brother's shoulders, a car payment was out of the question. So yeah, I gave our nice Jetta to him.

Which left us with my 1998 Honda in the driveway. Again, you don't need to be a human calculator to figure out that that is an old car.

The other day we went to test drive a few different Kia vehicles. We had a vague idea of what we can afford, which, for various reasons isn't much at this time, but we also had an interest in trying out a range of models in order to learn what they feel like. For example, the Kia Sportage, which J tried out of curiosity, was a big hit. We had gone in thinking maybe the Soul, or more likely the less expensive Rio, was for us. I don't think I should even have to explain why a customer would test drive vehicles, but I am, because the salesman could only see one thing in us. A sale.

Even though I know this isn't a remarkable revelation about car salesmen, it was still bizarre. He kept talking - to me, he could tell J would have none of this crap - about positive thinking. He would say "I woke up this morning knowing I'll make 4 sales today. I've sold 3 already, and I know I'm going to make a DEAL with you too."

Another gem. "Do you play cards?" he asked me. Thinking of all the games of Crazy Eights and Old Maid our family has played after dinner on wintry nights - all of us screeching and giggling trying to hoard our eights or get rid of the queen of spades, I said "yes". "What does the word ACE mean to you?" he asked. "Uh, it means number one in the series," I answered. "No," he said. "To me it means A Commitment to Excellence."

Were we speaking the same language?

"I believe in positive thinking, Hun," he said (I was called Hun throughout this experience, while J was called Ron as well as Buddy). "It's all about perception. You know, because perception IS reality."

I was really tired of having to field all this positive thinking spiel but I kept trying to be nice anyway. I made the small talk. I found out the sales rep, Raj, is 28 years old and supports his parents, who are from India.

In the end we couldn't really justify the monthly payments on a Kia Sportage. What a process it was to even find out what the prices would actually be. All the promises that had been made during the test drive fell away as we sat in the little chairs at the man's little desk/cubicle/thingy. The 10 year comprehensive warranty Raj had talked about on the test drive - that's only available if you don't get a discount on the vehicle. Like, you pay sticker price and you get the 10 year warranty that was promised to you. Which is also known as: you're paying thousands for a warranty you hope not to need. The 0% financing? That's only on the model that has no air conditioning. If you get the car with auto and AC - the one you were sitting in when Raj told you there was 0% financing for 84 months - you're looking at a nearly 10,000 buy-back in 5 years at the rates 2019 has in store for us.

When it was apparent that we really were going to leave without "making a deal today" Raj seemed a lot less positive. His language started to become peppered with words like "shit" and "shitty". He said to J - who is a seasoned car enthusiast with a mind like a steel trap - "you really should have done your research before coming here. Most people look at the website and find out about the warranty and the financing and pricing there."

"I did my research" J replied. "The first questions I asked you were about the financing and the warranty. You told us one thing, then later you told us another." I'm summarizing what J actually said, but it was detailed, airtight and razor sharp. I was proud to be his Hun.

When we got home we followed Raj's advice and performed some better car-buying research on the internet. Not that we hadn't before, but this time we paid a more careful eye to the fine print. The research did pay off, too. It turns out we can get everything we want in a car, for the price we can justify paying every month. From Hyundai.

So we'll be test driving a few Hyundais soon. That's my perception, anyway. Let's see what reality brings.

UPDATE: Photo above shows us with our just-purchased Hyundai car from Gyro Hyundai in Leaside. The staff there were so amazing, they actually deserve a blog post of their own.