Buying my new vehicle - Part 2

Ok,

So the road to my new vehicle purchase really started about a year ago when I was contemplating next steps with respect to my pending lease coming to an end.  At the time I think I was looking at RAV4's and Santa Fe's.... my how times change.  I went back to my email collection and back in September I was strongly considering buying a VW Golf Wagon but balked because they were offering me $12,500 trade.... with the tax savings that is 14,125.  I ended up getting 14,600 but that was after I spent almost $2,500 on brakes, A/C, radiator and bushings.  Let this be a lesson..... you can't beat the car guys at their game, just relent and take whatever they offer you on trade!

Anyway back to the business at hand.  So in no particular order I have been seriously interested in Rav4, Santa Fe, Escape, Sportage, Sonata, Buick Regal, BMW 3 series, Acura TL, Volvo S60, 2007 BMW 5 series, and a 2007 Infiniti that ended up being a write off from New York.  All of these have probably been posted about at one point or another but here is my summary of why I didn't buy them:

Rav 4, Santa Fe & Sportage  - decided I did not want another SUV

Escape - I was really close to getting one of these before I decided I didn't want an SUV but after a lot of research decided the fuel economy wasn't good enough and everyone seems to own one of these.  Nicest salesperson of any I have met.

Sonata - AT first I loved the styling and you get a lot for your money but after a while the styling just seemed to swoopy.

Regal - Great lease deal at $400/mth all in but it was just too old manish in the end.

BMW 3 series, Volvo, Acura - Just too expensive for what you get, especially compared to my new beauty.

2007 BMW 5 series - With the used car rate at 6% and no warranty remaining, it just seemed to expensive and risky although it was going for a good price.

2007 Infiniti - Great deal but it was a write off from new york that was put back together in Quebec, check the post on it.

Also considered the golf wagon mentioned above, subaru impreza but it is too small and underpowered, Mazda 6 just didn't seem like enough for your money.... I'm sure there were more.

So that's about it for what I didn't buy, tomorrow the discussion moves into what I did buy.

Buying my new vehicle - Part 1

Ok,

So I think whats needed as a starting point are more pictures..... Wow that is a beautiful car!!!

It`s a 2011 silver Optima EX Luxury with black leather seats, nd check out that panoramic sunroof. 

It has lots of other goodies..... Heated and cooled front seats, heated rear seats, voice activated audio (microsoft UVO), push button start, power passenger seat, remote garage door opener, auto dimming mirror with compass, bluetooth, ipod input, in dash info center, sweet 18`` wheels, and 200hp with great fuel economy. 

Tomorrow the purchase story begins.....

Selling the Honda Pilot Pt. 3

Ok,

So I thought about it for about 5 minutes and then came to my senses, told Canadian Tire to book me for the work last Wednesday and got on with my life.  At this point I had the salesguy guy holding my beautiful new car for me so another $500 wasn't going to stop me.  I went to salesguy and told them I wasn't going to pay for undercoating which they had previously told me was already done and surprise surprise it wasn't done yet and the car was now $500 less.  Don't want to get into the new purchase here, that is for a later in the week post. 

Anyway I called the buyer back, told him I was getting the work done and I would have the clean inspection slip for Wednesday.  The father then tried to talk me into a convenience deal for $14,000 but I told him I was looking for cash to pay off my line of credit.  He tried to talk me into it again and I told him no thanks cash would be fine.  SO they had to arrange everything with Grand Falls Honda which was processing the transaction for us, he said he was paying them $500 to do so but that was fine by me because I knew the cheque would be good from Honda and no fuss on my end.  Apparently their nephew works there or something.  So we faxed some stuff back and forth and lots of email exchanges took place over last week.
Anyway the guy at honda was great, there were some minor hold ups because the father was not feeling well and he was the one working out all the finer points.  When I got my vehicle back from Crappy Tire they gave me back the parts that were supposed to be broken, they were definitely wearing but looked to be in decent shape....  lesson learned.

Anyway on Thursday at about 1pm my bank account grew by 14,600 and I delivered my beloved 2007 Honda Pilot EX to its new owner.  I'm sure he will get years of good use out of it.... it was just time for me to move on.....

So that's it, in the next couple of days I will chronicle my buying of a new vehicle which took place last Thursday morning......

Selling the Honda Pilot Pt. 2

So it was about 2 weeks ago that the guy came by, really liked the Pilot .... then the next day I got a call from his father.  I know he was only trying to make sure his son got a good deal but  it turned into a half hour conversation about how they wanted a new inspection slip since the one from Honda was expired (which I was more than welcome to go get) and he said he thought 14,500 was a fair price.  I told him we had agreed on 14,700 and he himmed and hawed a bit and I told him to go ask his son about it.  Turns out the father was in car sales for 30 years as well as a religious minister so his conversations ended well but he liked to tell the whole story..... like how his son had bought som bad vehicles in the past, how he thought the Honda was an excellent vehicle, how he was helping to finance the vehicle etc etc.... 

SO it still seemed like a done deal I just had ot get a new inspection slip.  Honda had charged me $100 for the one a couple months ago so I made the dumbass move to call Canadian Tire since I figured I could get in there fairly quickly.  They set up the inspection for last Monday, it would cost $50.  I thought it was funny they asked me if I was the buyer or seller but I said I was the seller and got on with it.  So 2 months earlier I got a clean bill of health from Honda so what did I have to worry about??? 

Well, I got a call from Canadian Tire about 11 Monday morning saying the inspection was complete AND the rear bushings were starting to separate.  So I had no idea what that meant, the guy went on to explain that you can't replace just the rear bushings you have to replace the whole arm they are attached to which cost about $120 each, with about $2oo labour for a grand total of about $480 and I also needed the center brake light replaced so the total was something like $500.  ANOTHER $500.......... again I doubted if I should be selling or not.  I emailed the potential buyer to tell him the bad news and tha I was thinking over what I should do.  I got a call from the father in short order saying how much they wanted the vehicle but needed the inspection certificate and weren't willing to pay for any of the repairs (I didn't expect them to of course).  I told him I would mull it over and get back to them later that afternoon.....

Tune in tomorrow for the conclusion of selling the honda.... and the prelude to buying the Kia!

Selling the Honda Pilot Pt. 1

Ok, so after I got to liking the Audi I figured I would give one last shot at selling the Pilot.  I decided to repost on Kijiji and NL Classifieds at 14,900 and figured for sure it would sell quickly.  I got some interest pretty quickly but no one came by to check it out.  I had one guy offer me a very complicated convenience deal where he would give me $14,000 which I could go through the VW dealership on towards the Audi so I would also save tax on $14,000.  The kicker was he also wanted to trade his 2007 GMC Yukon in on the Pilot but the dealership wanted to charge me $500 because they were basically doing 2 extra transactions besides the sale of the Audi.  I thought it over for about 5 minutes and decided against it, it just seemed too weird.  I would end up getting only $13,500 for the Pilot plus the tax savings but this guy I was dealing with was just drivng me off my head.

Anyway I hung on a week or so later and got a call from a potential buyer who wanted to come by and check out the Pilot right away.  He came by that night (which is about 2 weeks ago now) and really seemed excited about it, actually it brought back memories of myself when I first got caught up in Pilot fever.  He said he would drop by the next day or two and take it for a spin and I said just let me know when.  Next day he called back and arranged to come back and take it for a quick drive.  It was the shortest test drive in history, literally a five minute drive down the road.  He told me he was 100% interested in the vehicle and wanted to buy it.  He offered me 14,500, I told him I would mull it over and emailed him back shortly after to let him know he could take it away for 14,700.

So everything was going great, the Audi was still available, I seemed to have a committed buyer .... I mean what could possibly go wrong??? 

Find out tomorrow!

My new baby

Ok, so as a prelude to the story behind the vehicle here is pic of my new baby....

Yes I know, it's beautiful............. was a long hard road but in the end it was all worth it.  The story begins tomorrow......  So do you know what it is???

The deal is done.....

Ok people, the pilot is sold..... I have new wheels..... and over the next week I will chronicle the sale and new purchase process.  I had to go dark for a while but now I'm back.

I'll give you a hint... my new vehicle is beautiful, loaded with every nice thing a car can have (except nav because I don't want it) including heated and cooled front seats, heated rear seats, panoramic sunroof, voice recognition, heated steering wheel, stellar 18" tires and all kinds of other goodies.....

Stay tuned the weekend for the full story!

2009 Audi A4 2.0t

The local Audi dealership just  put out a 2009 Audi A4 2.0T with a set of winter and all season tires for $33,900, it only has 28,000 km.  I went over to take a look, it's really nice and the A4 was totally redesigned for 2009 with more interior space and a boost in HP and torque.  It has a respectable 208 HP but a solid 258 lb/ft of torque for get up and go.  Nice heated leather seats, sunroof, quality interior layout and drives exceptionally well.  Although it is 208 hp, there is more than enough power in the vehicle.  Here is the link:

http://www.billmatthewsvolkswagen.com/PreOwned/PreOwnedVehicle.aspx?lng=2&id=a896e8dc-eb40-463f-9dc9-9fe40077e7f9

A couple of other nice things are the certified used warranty which covers it until June 2015 and included winter tires.  The quattro AWD system is great for our winters and it has a neat Audi info system that controls climate and audio.  They also have good used rates at 1.9% for 5 years and 2.9% for 6 years.

The salesguy said they can do a bit better on price, you have to make a $500 deposit with your offer, if they take the offer the $500 gets applied to sales price and if they don't accept you get it back.  Of course I still have to sell the Pilot. 

Audi will do convenience deals where you also save the tax on the sales price of your vehicle  as long as the buyer agrees to buy it through Audi at the agreed upon sales price. For example if you sell your vehicle for $15,000 you also save 15,000 X 0.13 = 1,950 of tax on the vehicle you are buying.  There is no charge for this but you have to cross your fingers that everything goes smoothly on deal day or you have both a new car AND an old car.

I really like the audi, I may do a firesale $15,000 deal on the pilot contingent on the buyer doing a convenience deal.  Although winter reminds me of why I bought the Pilot in the first place.