I totalled my car recently by hitting a deer. Now I'm looking for a new car. Meanwhile, I've been driving my pickup truck to and from work, to the tune of about $75 per week. So, I am buying another car in the next week or so.120 responses total.
I was more or less looking at two or three cars, and more or less basing my choices on Consumer Reports on-line. From their reviews, I settled on a Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic. They're two excellent cars from the reviews, with great gas mileage (near 40 mph), and the features I want (air, cruise, 5 speed, CD player) for a price I can afford; aroun $15,000. But I'm a member of a GM family. I have a dad who retired from GM, and a brother working for Saturn. Consumer Reports really hates GM; none of their cars are reviewed as being very good, and the ones in my price range are rated as horrid. I was interested in a Pontiac Sunfire or Saturn Ion or something like that. They're described in terms that make it clear you'd be nuts to buy one. Anyway, I called a local GM dealer to see what the family discount is, and it's remarkable; it's a couple of thousand dollars. Also, Chevy Cavaliers are drawing $4000 rebates right now. In addition to that, there's a financing discount; if you put up to $2000 down, you get half of that amount as a rebate. I could buy a Cavalier with everything I want except cruise control for around $8500. It's EPA rated at 26/37. Consumer Reports tests cars for mileage, and they're usually not too far off from the EPA numbers. The Cavalier is a crummy car compared to a Corolla or Civic, but it's a little more than half the money for me. I'm no car nut. I just want to get to and from work, and go on occasional vacations. Sunroofs, spoilers, alloy wheels, etc. do very little for me, I find, when I contemplate paying for them. I'm thinking this Cavalier might well do all I need. It even comes in different colors. Many cars come in shades of black and white, plus red, and that's it. This one can be had in green (Go State!), or yellow, orange, or a few other colors. As long as it doesn't cost more, that's a bonus.
What would a used Toyota Corolla cost you? How much would it save you on gasoline per year?
A two year old used car, bought with *regular* finance rate, could end up costing more per month.
While I am no GM fan, I am not sure you can go wrong at $8500. I mean, at that price, does it really matter if it only lasts half as long as a Honda?
Depends on what it costs to fix, and how often it need to be fixed.
Yeah, but how often does a new car need to be fixed? Even if it is a GM car. Does it come with any kind of warranty?
I really like my Honda Civic, which has served well for 13 years, but if I got a couple thousand dollars' discount for buying GM, I think I'd go for it too. My mother came from a GM family too - her Dad was a lifer. But she gave up on GM after her 1976 Chevy Chevette.
The dealer I talked to told me there's basically no possibility of negotiating on price when you get the GM discount, because they're selling the car at factory price anyway. I'll check on that (by asking for price at another dealership or two)... but does anyone know if it's true? I wish the GM WWW sites showed the family discount in the price, so I could really compare their cars to others. re resp:2: If someone is selling a 2 year old Corolla, chances seem pretty good it's got problems. A year ago when I brought up the discussions about buying cars, I thought I'd prefer a used one. I also thought I'd have the chance to take my time, check out different cars, and get to know a little about what I was doing. Right now, if I came across a $2000-3000 used car that was pretty reliable, I'd buy it. The problem I have is that I don't know how to tell a good used car from a bad one. And I have got to get out of driving my pickup truck quickly. I am spending $75 per week just in gas. (I'll pay for a Cavalier in about 3 years at that rate.) The truck has 150,000 miles on it. If something happens to it before I have another car, I am in a very difficult position. I have spent maybe $2000 in car repairs this calendar year. I'm not willing to pay for another car *and* keep a big repair bill too. I'm focusing on gas mileage as my priority. I have even considered the hybrid cars, Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid. Unfortunately, I drive enough miles (25-30K per year) that the expected life span of the batteries (100,000 miles) might catch up to me before the price on the batteries drops enough to make replacement worthwhile. Right now, replacement batteries are about $4000. I expect I'll look at hybrids again in a few years.
Bit of a pickle.
I would rate cars on the following :- - Price (ofcourse) - Price and availability of spares. Do they have a 24 hour spares shop in your vicinity? Here, surprisingly, Mercedes spares are cheaper than Toyota. - Free service with the new car. Here (Oman), Toyota gives 2-3 years of free service with the car depending on the model. - Quality of service. Check with other owners. Also check how long they take to service your car. Here, Toyota services the car within 6 hours. Mitsubishi takes a day. If informed a day in advance, Toyota even arranges for a car for the six hours. - Check for warranty conditions. Here, Mitsubishi sends you a list of spares to be changed every year. If you fail to change them, the warranty is void. - Resale value. If you plan to change your car in the next 4-5 years, how much would you get for it? How fast can you sell it off, if needed?
Edmunds.com should be able to tell you what the dealer pays for any car on the lot. They go to the link reporting any incentives the manufacturer will be paying the dealer. I know for a fact that having this information saved us at least a couple of thousand dollars a car. I wouldn't own anything but a Civic. I bonded 25 years ago. ;-)
s/then/they
I gave up on GM after my 1971 Chevy Vega experience. This highly touted "Motor Trend Car of the Year" was a pile of junk two years later. Switched to Toyota for my next car and have purchased only Japanese cars since. To be fair, I think Detroit has gotten its quality control act together much better since the 1970s, not because they wanted to but because the foreign competition forced them to. But still, Toyota and Honda still seem to lead the field in low frequency of repair records. My current car is a Toyota Camry. Just my two cents. Not sure that it helps John out all that much.
If you get GM discounts but you'd rather have a Toyota for quality, look
at the Pontiac Vibe (a re-badged Toyota Matrix, IIRC). If they are not
discounting it, maybe you should ask why the other cars are going so cheap.
Re #2: If the difference in gas mileage is 40 MPG vs. 35 MPG and
fuel costs $2.00/gallon, it would take... let's see.
$6500 / [ (1/(35 mpg) - 1/(40 mpg)) * $2/gallon ]
= $6500 / ( 1/280 gallons/mile * $2/gallon )
= $6500 / (1/140 $/mile)
= 910,000 miles to make up a difference of $6500 in initial cost,
ignoring the time value of money.
This is rather extreme. In contrast, the price-premium of a hybrid over a
conventional car is supposed to be about $1800, and the mileage improvement
is typically from 25 MPG to ~40 MPG.
$1800 / [ (1/(25 mpg) - 1/(40 mpg)) * $2/gallon ]
= $1800 / (.015 gallon/mile * $2/gallon)
= $1800 / ( $.03 $/mile )
= 60,000 miles to make up the difference.
If gasoline cost $5/gallon, it would be 24,000 miles.
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Don't assume that a used car (say 4 years old) would need the same amount of repairs as the 1992 car you were driving. WHat is the cost of a 4 year old Toyota?
Someone might be selling a 1>2 year old machine because they need to, not because there is anything wrong with it. Any used car should come with a full service history, manuals, and be checked for rust and a working gearbox, etc.
John, my mom drives a Cavalier - it's her 4th one. If you want, give her a call and ask her - she also got hers on the discount.
The main complaint I've heard about the new Saturns (other than the styling, which I personally hate) is that they have extremely wide turning radiuses for small cars. I've jokingly suggested that since GM is advertising the four-wheel-steering version of the Suburban as having a turning radius "the same as a Saturn sedan," maybe they had to cripple the sedan's turning radius a bit to meet that target. ;>
My saturn was a good car, very dependable, but after 60,000 it started using oil. on the other hand, a guy I worked with had the same saturn I had and had 200,000 on it with no oil usage, but he did maintain the oil changes at 3000 which I did not. I also loved my Cavalier. It took a head on collission at 60 mph and the passenger compartment stayed intact. No one in our car was injured, everybody in the other car was. WE wore our seat belts, tehy did not. (we were both going about 30 mph on a very slippery road.) They were driving a ford.
Cavaliers were great. We had a GTX (or something) souped-up sports version. (They *were* great because in Europe they've been replaced by the "Vectra"). We had an old Voilvo that took a collision coming out of a cul-de-sac w/i a guy in a Renault 5 who was blind by choice (i.e. he didn't look where he was going). Totalled the Renault, though IIRC the guy was ok; on the left side, where he hit us, the Volvo's indicator light broke.
My brother works for Saturn. A half year ago, when I asked him, he advised me to avoid the Ion. I plan to talk to him and see if he thinks they're better now, but if he's not willing to heartily recommend it, I don't want one. Discounts available to me for the Chevy Cavalier and Pontiac Sunfire, the two GM cars I am considering: -- $4000 discount for the model (or they have these basic car specials which amounts to about the same discount) -- about $2000 employee/family discount -- 50% of the down payment up to $2000 (up to $1000 discount). This is also for employees and family.
I have never in my life heard a good word spoken about the Jim Bradley dealership. I went to them around 10 years ago when I was thinking of buying a Saturn and became the only person I know who was ever treated shabbily by a Saturn dealer. Not to hold a grudge, though... if anyone here can say anything nice about them, I'll probably at least talk to them. Mary and John, do you buy your Hondas at Howard Cooper? There *is* something to be said about Consumer Reports and probably everyone else saying the car you're buying is the best built car in it's class.
No one has mentioned the consideration of whether a car meets one's desires for functionality for one's own uses. Mine have been a station wagon (not SUV) with 4- or All- wheel drive, and a manual transmission, at the lowest cost. That combination pretty much limited me to a Subaru.
(Russ, I think you dropped a decimal point in the first set of equations in #14. You wrote, "$6500 / ( 1/280 gallons/mile * $2/gallon )"; shouldn't that be 1/0.280 gallons/mile?
I have a Honda Civic I'm selling, incidentally, but I imagine you won't want it because it has airbags.
I buy the Hondas and John is a Toyata man. I can't remember the name of his dealer, it's on Jackson Rd., near Wagner. I buy from Howard Cooper but let it be known I'll travel elsewhere for a better deal.
All cars built in the last 10 years have airbags, Dave. I've ranted against them in the past, but failed so far to provoke widesweeping sentiment banning them from all cars. While my opposition seeps through the nation, I guess I'll just have to put up with their existence for a year or two. Is it the car you listed in the classified conference? I figured that would have been gone by now.
Oh, yeah... re Russ, resp:14: The price of a hybrid is around $3000 more than for a gas car. The federal government gives a $2000 tax rebate for buying one. I seriously considered the hybrid Honda Civic but decided to wait a few years on the hybrids.
I'd be interested to know what's so wrong with airbags.
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Re #28: I got rid of my 1986 Subaru in part because it did NOT have airbags. But if we are lucky only cars with airbags will be on the road in a few years.
re resp:30: I have a 7 year old son. It would be nearly as effective a safety device to put an iron portcullis on his side of the car, with sharpened, poisoned spikes, which would drill through his body in the event of an accident, as to have an airbag for his seat. If he rides in the front seat, he may be at an increased risk of injury if we're in an accident, but if he's in the front seat with an airbag, he is in mortal danger if we even get in a bumper-thumper type accident. Some "safety" feature. It costs about $700, per seat, to have a new car equipped with this benefit. It does ensure, no questions about it, for *sure*, he will *always* be sitting in the back seat if I buy a new car, because of the hugely increased hazard of this "safety" device. The aforementioned portcullis would also do that. Not that I want to discuss air bags or anything. Please take that discussion to another item. We also discussed airbags in the Bummed item.
Jesus wept. Maybe they did that to ensure kids got in the back, as well. It's illegal in the uk for kids to go in the front up until about 6 or 7 anyways.
I seem to recall hearing that (some?) newer cars allow the passenger air bags to be turned off, and/or have newfangled gadgetry that sense the size of the passenger and adjust the air bag inflation accordingly? Yes/no?
Oh, and as to the Cavalier: Over the past decade, myself and a couple family members have owned Cavaliers, and would not hesitate to buy another. Mine, an '89, served me well and faithfully until I sold it at 170,000+ miles (and it was still running just fine, thank you).
It's certainly interesting to hear all the commentary about Cavaliers. I had not previously considered the Cavalier, though I'd thought about the Pontiac Sunfire. I'm considering it now! I should add, to my description of my perceptions of the GM WWW sites (except Saturn): it's maddening how often the chevrolet.com and pontiac.com WWW sites are down, or just fail to respond. It is often impossible to change the color on a Pontiac Sunfire to "red"; they thought of the car as grey, and grey is what you're usually going to see on the WWW. The sites frequently fail to respond at all, or respond with an "I'm sorry, the system isn't working right now" type message.
My 2003 VW Jetta has weight sensors in the seats that are supposed to adjust airbag deployment force based on the size of the occupant, and not have the airbags deploy for empty seats. It's still got warning labels saying not to let kids under age 12 sit in the front seats due to airbag danger. I don't know if that's just a matter of not trusting the sensors, or if the sensors really don't distinguish well between kids over 12 and kids under 12. As far as Saturns go, my 1994 Saturn has done pretty well at keeping running once I started mostly ignoring routing maintenance several years ago. During the first few years I had it, I was being careful and taking it in for regular service, and every time I did something would be found seriously wrong with it, which would be expensive to fix. For the last several years I've been pouring in a quart of oil every thousand miles, getting the oil changed at a quick oil change place two or three times a year (I haven't been driving much the last few years), and deciding on a case by case basis whether the plastic components that break off did any thing functional. For the only one that seemed critical (the piece of plastic on the bottom of the car that channels air into the cooling system) I discovered I was able to reattach the old one using ethernet cable rather than having it replaced at a cost of several hundred dollars like I'd done the last couple of times. Still, when I got to the point were there was some somewhat significant work I'd have to do to make it a good road trip car again, and I'd already been looking into buying a new car during the week the Saturn was missing after it got stolen, I decided I'd rather replace it than deal with it being repaired. At almost 10 years old with 130,000 miles on it, I think it's done reasonably well. Anybody in the Bay Area want to buy a cheap car? After finding out what a hassle it is to deal with a stolen car, being hard to steal quickly rose to near the top of my priority list, and that eliminates Hondas and Toyotas from consideration. I don't know if the current generation of Saturns has gotten any better in that regard, but I was told by the cop who took my stolen car report that mid-90s Saturns are stolen so often that the police around here run the plates whenever they see one. Indeed, I was talking to somebody on the train this morning who was complaining that his '94 Saturn had just been stolen for the second time in a year. That mine was returned with no damage to the door or the ignition presumably illustrates just how easy they are to drive off with. The Jetta, in addition to its alarm system, has a radio transceiver in the key that has to be in close proximity to the dash board, or the engine control computer won't run. I ended up choosing the Jetta for a number of reasons, most of which probably won't appeal to jep. Part of it was because it appears hard to steal. Part of it was for safety -- In addition to anti-locks brakes and traction control, the big airbag question now appears to be not whether to have them but how many to have. The Jetta has six of them, front and side for each front seat passenger, and "side curtain" which goes between the side windows and the heads of both front and back seat passengers. The high end luxury cars have eight. They add front airbags for the back seat passengers as well. Other cars in the Jetta's price range tend to have at most four. Mostly, though, the Jetta is just a really fun car to drive. I wanted a Mercedes or BMW or Audi, and the Jetta was the closest I could comfortably afford. The big lesson I learned from car buying this time was the importance of both shopping around and negotiating. I started out at the VW dealer that's an easy walk from my house, where the salesman was very nice and quoted me a price that was slightly below dealer invoice, so I suspected I was getting a good deal. To be sure, I sent requests for quotes to several other VW dealers in the area (car dealers all now have "Internet sales departments," to deal with requests that come in by e-mail or via web forms, and which supposedly quote lower prices than the sales people in the dealership can quote), and ended up with a fairly large spread, ranging from slightly above what I'd been quoted by the first dealer to $2,000 below. I then went to talk to the guy with the $2,000 lower quote, and found him to be really slimy, but also rather easy to push down on price even further. We talked for a couple hours, with him becoming progressively ruder, me becoming progressively angrier, and him lowering the price more and more whenever I indicated that I didn't like him and really would prefer not to buy from him. By the end of that session, we were $2,500 lower than my quote from the original dealer, and had moved up to a car with significantly more options. He refused to give me the quote in writing, which I thought was strange. I refused to buy without spending the night thinking it over first. The more I thought about it, the more I really wanted to run screaming from the slimy salesman, but his pricing seemed just too good to do so. I called back the original dealer, and it turned out he didn't have the car he'd originally quoted me the price on, just cars loaded with lots of options I didn't want to pay for. I offered him a couple hundred dollars less than the slimy dealer's quote for a fancier car, and he said no, as I expected. I then called back the slimy dealer and told him I'd accept the deal we'd negotiated the day before, but he responded by raising the price $500. I hung up on him, expecting him to repeat the previous day's pattern by calling back, but haven't heard from him since. I then started looking around on the web, and saw that the dealer who had been my second lowest bidder had three identical cars in the inventory database on their website. I called them and said, "hi, I see you have these three cars in your database. I had a deal with with (the other dealer) for (the price that had been offered and withdrawn), but they're really unpleasant to deal with and I'd much rather buy from somebody else." He responded by quoting me a price $500 less than what was no longer available at the other dealer, and e-mailed me a written quote (a big improvement over the other guy). I told him I'd take it. I ended up buying the car for $4,000 under MSRP, which was $3,000 under invoice and $3,000 under the original quote I'd gotten, and around $2,500 under the Edmunds.com "true market value." The salesman who had given me the original quote and refused my counter offer (which, as it turned out, was more than I ended up paying) called me back as I got in the door from buying the car. I told him he was too late, so I don't know what he would have offered at that point.
(IIRC, those warning stickers were Federally mandated, when the reports started coming out on the first-generation airbags. The requirement remains, even if no longer strictly true, because "better safe than sorry" and liabilty suits are really ugly.)
Yep, I recognize a fellow negotiations warrior up there. ;-) Go in fully armed with information, check out the incentives, know how long the car has been on the dealers lot and why this is important. Time it for the end of the month. Don't look anxious to own the car. Be firm and willing to walk away. Don't muddy up the issues by throwing a trade in into the deal. I've never let a deal get hostile but it's gotten tense. What a shame you need these skills to get a fair price.
(Re #25: Do the calculations yourself and see. If you had any feel for numbers you'd already know.)
Is this a good time of year to get a discount on a 2003 car?
Re #28: I've had a couple nibbles, but no strong interest. I'd be willing to cut a deal on it. It's a 2-door, though, so it may not be ideal for someone with a kid. It's also manual shift; I don't know how you feel about that. If you're interested, email me. I'll let you know the maintenance issues I know of with it. (There are only a couple.) Re #31: Why do GM cars all have that old lady smell after a few years? A friend of mine used to have an '87 Buick Somerset. It was a surprisingly competent car. By the time I rode in it it had over 100,000 miles on it with minimal maintenance. It tended to backfire through the intake under heavy throttle, and sometimes wouldn't restart for a couple hours if you turned it off with the engine hot. But other than that it ran well and gave about 30 mpg until someone rear-ended it on I-5 and totalled it. On the other hand, my uncle's mid-80's Cavilier, with good maintenance, seized up at about 80,000 miles. GM cars are sorta potluck that way. Re #38: That plastic air dam is a big problem on Saturns around here. It tends to get ripped off the first time you hit one of those ice chunks that fall off semi trucks. I hope they fixed it in later models.
Ah. I see now: } = $6500 / ( 1/280 gallons/mile * $2/gallon ) and } = $1800 / (.015 gallon/mile * $2/gallon) differ by at least one omitted step. 280 gallons/mile is .0035 gallon/mile . And yes, it makes sense that a difference of 5 miles per gallon would take longer to make up than a difference of 15 miles per gallon.
I am not a good negotiator, so examples such as yours, Steve, are very helpful to me. Consumer Reports has an example or two on their WWW site as well. The last time I bought a car from a dealer, it was a used car, and I paid what they asked for, then let them pile on whatever garbage they wanted, then talked to someone after I'd committed myself and found out I'd overpaid by a bunch. While I was married, I let my wife, who likes cars, do the car buying. There's a market out there for car negotiator counselors who get great deals for people like me in exchange for a portion of the money they save. I suppose anyone who's good at that sort of thing and wants to do it professionally sells cars for dealers.
(I know someone who'd make a GREAT professional car negotiator counselor if she ever decided she was interested... ;-)
Apparently my brother who works for Saturn thinks the Ion has improved enough he considered buying one. He works nights but I sent him an e- mail asking him for his thoughts. Maybe he'll answer. Here's why people buy Saturns, I guess: ----------------------------------------------------------- If you aren't completely satisfied with your new Saturn vehicle, you'll have 30 days or 1,500 miles of delivery, whichever comes first, to exchange it for another 2004 Saturn vehicle. ----------------------------------------------------------- There is also the "GM 24 hour test drive" which I feel sure was invented by Saturn. Go to this site and then select "Program restrictions". It's really pretty impressive: (combine these into one link) http://www.saturn.com/saturn/financialtools/regionaloffers /featured/sleep_on_it.jsp?nav=2200 If I buy a Saturn, I'll have to go to Plymouth or Toledo, but that should not be so bad. When I was married we bought a minivan in Farmington Hills; the distance didn't present any problems for us.
The reason 2 people have given me for buying a Saturn is because the price at the dealer is fixed. There's no haggling like with other dealers, and so they don't leave with a car and wonder if they could have got it cheaper
A lot of British car companies (e.g. Vauxhall, who made the Cavalier over here) have been taken over by GM, but I've never herard of Saturn. Anyone know if they have an equivalent in the UK?)
Saturns are built in Tennessee, and are sold only in the US and Canada as far as I know. They're usually rated by magazines as pretty ordinary cars, but their customer satisfaction scores are high because of their no-haggle pricing and because they really try to make people feel happy. People go to Tennessee to tour the Saturn factory, and there's a Saturn-owners "reunion" every year. They used to use a Japanese style of management. When my brother hired in, he had to interview with the people he would be working with, and get their buy-in to be hired, for example. There was not much division between management and line workers. That's gone now; Saturn is owned by GM after all, and that's not the GM way. But I guess it was fun while it lasted.
Heh. Thanks.
Re #44: Even a difference of 5 MPG takes more or less time to make up, depending where it is. The problem is that fuel consumption is the inverse of miles per gallon, and people have a poor feel for inverses. Put it this way: making one vehicle improve from 20 MPG (0.05 gallon/mile) to 40 MPG (0.025 gallon/mile) saves twice as much fuel as taking an 80 MPG (0.0125 gallon/mile) vehicle and making it run on no fuel at all. The savings due to going from 25 MPG to 40 MPG is not 3 times as much as the savings due to going from 35 MPG to 40 MPG, it is more like 4.5 times as much; the difference between 20 MPG and 40 MPG is seven times as much as that between 35 MPG and 40 MPG.
My brother said the Saturns are being *much* better built these days. He said he wouldn't hesitate to buy one if he were looking for a car in that class. However, I'd been thinking along different lines, and have picked the Pontiac Sunfire. I ordered one this evening, and should get it in a few days. The incentives for GM cars seem to me really amazing. Counting the employee/family pricing, I'll be paying right around 2/3 of MSRP.
Congratulations, jep! Regarding the recommendations earlier in this item, and over and over again in Consumer Reports, to know all about the dealer's costs to get the car and refuse to pay more than some set amount over that, I'm not convinced. Partly this is because any formula for that sort of negotiation I've seen would have resulted in me insisting on a price significantly more than I paid for my new car, and partly this is because it doesn't seem to make much business sense. If the supply/demand equation for a given car (or any product) is such that the dealer can sell every one they get at a large profit, they're not going to accept offers that don't give them that profit margin. If they can't sell something for what they paid for it but they would like to get some of that money back, they'll cut their losses and sell it for less. What I'd suggest instead in negotiating car prices (from what little experience I have at it) is to treat it the same as negotiating anything else involving large amounts of money -- real estate, telecommunications capacity, employment terms and sallary: - If at all possible, don't make your opening offer until you've heard theirs. You don't want to end up asking for a worse deal than they would have just given you. If they ask you to go first, claim ignorance: "I'm just starting to look. I'm going to get a few more offers before deciding, but you know the market better than I do. Tell me what you think is fair." If they refuse to play that game, and won't go first, give them a number you know to be way out in left field. This generally forces them to counter with something. If they instead try to end the conversation, you can respond with, "ok, if that won't work, tell me what will." But then, stick to, or close to, your ridiculously low number. You'll have to go up at some point, most likely, but see how low you can get them to go first. They did, after all, ask you to come up with a number. - You've said you were going to get other offers as well. Do it. Get as many other offers as you reasonably can. Tell any but the lowest that they're too high, and see if they respond by coming down on their own. Negotiate down from the lowest, making it clear that you're still talking to the others and aren't ready to buy that day. Also, indicate with some hesitation that even the lowest bid might be high enough that the deal won't work. Never say it defnitely won't -- you lose credibility if you later end up taking it -- but insist that it will be difficult and that you need some time think it over. When you get to a point where you can get up and leave, saying you aren't sure if it's going to work, and they don't come after you, you've probably gotten them down as low as you're going to get them on your own. - Once you're pretty sure you've negotiated a good deal, you're at the point of being ready to go to the competition and name your own price, probably a few hundred lower than the offer you're about to accept. If the competing dealer accepts your offer, you're probably at the point where you should take it -- you're not going to get them down lower than what you've already offered them without some significant work. But at that point it might be worth calling another dealer and offering even less, to see what happens. If the other dealers refuse your offers, thank them for their time and take the deal you've already negotiated. That's a good indication that you really have done well in the negotiating process. On a slightly different note, I notice on Saturn's website that while their dealers aren't supposed to negotiate on price, the dealers do get to set their own prices. This presumably means that even if for some reason you were to buy a Saturn, it would still be worth doing a fair amount of shoping around for the best price. I wonder if they really just tell you to go away if the dealer in the next town turns out to have a lower price.
Congrats, jep! And thanks, Steve, for the tutorial.
Jim never negotiates on his cars. He currently owns two that were given to him by friends. Oddly enough, he fixed chimneys (free) for both of them, and plumbing, and their other cars.... Why buy a used car from a dealership rather than from the owner?
I doubt that Jim's method of getting cars is a practical option for most people. I also doubt, however, that it produces exceedingly *reliable* cars.
Re 56: If the car dealer has a used car you want to buy, you just might end up buying it there. Actually new-car dealers do get a fair number of used cars, either trade-ins or previously leased cars and such. Lots of late-model cars.
It appears that Saturns are not going to be produced much longer. Slow-selling was the excuse as I recall.
BOth cards given to Jim were taken care of well by their original owners. One of them has a hole in the floor in front of the passenger seat but works fine otherwise and he can patch it. They are probably more reliable than something purchased from a dealer who does not know the history.
A car with a hole (rust) thru the floor boards is very unsafe. The engine may run, but I can think of any number of safety problems.
He is going to rivet a sheet of stainless steel over the hole some year when the other car stops working, but that car has only about 160,000 miles on it and we usually only drive it twice a year. I could sit in back.
I haven't heard anything about Saturn being shut down. Oldsmobile is being discontinued, though. The last Oldsmobiles are scheduled to be made in May, 2004. My father worked for Oldsmobile (Fisher Body) in Lansing until Fisher Body became BOC. If there were any benefit for me in buying an Olds, I would have considered it. There's not, though. They don't come with a manual transmission, which I wanted. I don't care about a bigger engine. I would have paid about $8000 more to have an Olds label on the front, and it wouldn't have been what I wanted.
My limited experience with buying used cars from car dealers has not been good. They seem *very* reluctant to negotiate price on used cars, even when their asking price is significantly higher than Blue Book.
I'm quite sure that, given the investment in the launch and promotion of the Saturn brand, it would have been a higher priority news item in the Detroit media if the nameplate were to be on the way out. I am aware of the impending demise of Oldsmobile, as well as rumors, vehemently denied by the powers-that-be at Ford, that Mercury may be the next to go.
So far Saturn hasn't been slated for elimination. It's been basically folded back into GM, though, so it's no longer really distinct from any other GM brand. The plan is to do the usual GM thing -- use the same platforms for Saturns as for other GM cars, with "badge engineering" and minor trim differences to try to convince people there's a difference. They're also talking about getting rid of the plastic body panels.
I picked up my 2004 Pontiac Sunfire after work today. It's red, 5 speed manual, has a power sunroof, MP3 player (and a radio with more gadgetry than my computer, which I'll describe some day), cruise, fog lamps, intermittent wipers, and chrome wheels. I would have rather had ABS brakes than the spoiler, fog lamps and chrome wheels, but there was limited selection. It's rated at 37 mpg highway, 26 city. I'm *so* looking forward to not buying 25 gallons of gas twice per week! Nice car. I got to drive it to Burger King this evening, then a Cub Scout meeting; about 20 miles total. Yeehah. Tomorrow I'll drive it to work then probably go for a longer drive after work.
Nice whore.
BTW, someone else in my apartment building has a 2004 red Pontiac Sunfire. Mine has a sunroof and chrome wheels; the other one has flowery red seat covers. Otherwise they're pretty much the same.
Congratulations, John!
I'd like to thank Mary Remmers for her help in buying a car. She had offered (and I had accepted) for her to come along with me to dealerships to make sure I got a fair deal. She didn't actually have to do it, as it turned out, because I found out GM employee pricing is at a fixed price. All dealerships offer the same price for GM employees and their families. She was willing to, though. She had begun the research process. What a remarkable offer for her to make, though! I appreciate it enormously.
re resp:70: Thanks!
One thing that surprised me. I thought, once I picked out the car I wanted, of course it would become available in a day or so. I was willing to go either with a Chevy Cavalier or a Pontiac Sunfire. They're pretty common cars. But nope, my choice wasn't common at all. I wanted a manual transmission; that alone cut down my choices a lot. My dealer and I we talked a lot of times, and things got added and subtracted to the car I wanted each time we talked. He wound up faxing me a list of Cavaliers that were as close as he could find to what I wanted. None were all that close, so then he faxed me a list of Sunfires. Eventually he located the one I picked, but it was in Kalkaska. My "new" car came to me with 250 miles on the odometer. The car has some things I really didn't want (spoiler, fog lights), and is missing something I really did want (antilock brakes). It has something costly I could have lived without (sunroof), but my son loves that sunroof. The sunroof was part of the Sun and Surf package that included an MP3 player. I really love *that*. (100 Johnny Cash songs on a CD, 91 Garth Brooks songs on another. Zowie!) I could have gotten the ABS, but wouldn't budge on not paying for OnStar and XM Satellite Radio. I could have gotten exactly the car I wanted, except it would have been black. My ex-wife's car is black. No, thanks. I didn't want to buy a car I would hate from the start. By having GM send me the rebate check instead of applying it to the balance of the car, I will, when I receive it, be able to erase my credit card balance. If I keep that balance low for the next few years, I will be paying about $75 per month in all for a new car. If I pay more than the minimum monthly bill I can reduce the principal and pay off the car in a lot less than 5 years. I don't understand money. Sometimes it does really weird things. Usually those bite you. That seems not to have happened this time. Right now, it appears to me the net effect of my crashing my Taurus a month ago is that a couple of problems just plain disappeared; an aging old car and my credit card balance.
We just learned yesterday that our visitor is selling their 1996 Nissan, in good condition, with sunroof but no MP3 player. Dark red. Anyone want it? She has been here a week and did not mention it before. They are going to be out of the country for a few years or would have kept it.
Jep, I sympathise about money; sometimes I feel the same way. What's with not wanting fog lights? It's interesting that buying a manual transmission limits your choices. I don't know if the same thing happens in the UK, but if it does, it would be choices in automatics that are limited, since almost everyone drives manuals over here. What makes you go for manual over automatic? I'll have to ask someone whether you can still get cars w/o anti-lock brakes in Britain or not; i think it's illegal not to, but I'm not sure. Could Michigan (or whichever State you're in) make them illegal, or is that something for the federal government to work out, I wonder?
When my dad has bought new cars, he's always ended up ordering one with exactly what he wanted and waiting for it to be produced and shipped. But he tended to want cars with less common options, like a trailer towing package. ABS was starting to become pretty standard on U.S. cars, but with downward pressure on prices recently it's become optional again on most lower-cost models. Interestingly enough, statistically ABS doesn't seem to reduce accident rates. It's possible that drivers "compensate" for having it by driving more aggressively, cancelling out the benefit.
re resp:76: Now you tell me. (-: Sindi, advertise it in classified. I have always closely considered cars I saw advertised there. I think others probably do, too. Now, I'm emphatically not in the market for a car just now. But I am sure others are.
I'd have rather ordered a car and gotten exactly what I wanted, however it would have taken a month, and I didn't want to drive my truck for another month. I would have had to order a Saturn, according to the dealership. They estimated 3-4 weeks for delivery. I didn't want to wait. That affected my decision not to get a Saturn. I don't know how much the fog lights cost, but whatever it is, it was too much. I have had fog lights in other cars. I have never gained anything from using them. It gets foggy out in my neck of the woods; there are more 2 hour school delays for fog every year than there are cancellations for snow. I've driven in every level of fog, including fog such that you don't want to drive more than about 20 mph and shouldn't drive at all. I have never seen any benefit at all to having fog lights under any conditions. I went for manual transmission over automatic because it's more fun to drive. Also there's a slight advantage for gas mileage. Also it's about $800 cheaper (but I'd have gone manual even if it cost the same). In Michigan, if you drive in the winter, you are occasionally going to slide on ice. Antilock brakes mean you don't have to pay attention to your brakes. You can deal with keeping the car on the road and not hitting anyone, and just stomp on the brakes.
I like a manual transmission car better in the snow, because I can instantly take all the engine force off the drive wheels by pushing in the clutch. The results are especially dramatic in a rear wheel drive car -- if the rear end is starting to step out due to engine braking or accelleration, it will almost always tuck right back in when I push in the clutch. I can get the same effect in an automatic by shifting to neutral, of course, but that means taking my hands off the wheel and there's always a risk I'll overshoot and end up in reverse. The used Volvo I recently bought has *rear* fog lights, which I'd never seen before but strike me as an interesting idea. They're like another pair of tail lights, except about twice as bright, so they penetrate the fog better and give more of a chance of being seen.
If I understand correctly, you can start a car with manual transmission by pushing it down an incline, but not one with automatic transmission.
I had a Pontiac LeMans several years ago, my first manual transmission car. I stalled it and couldn't get it restarted at the Arby's near Hamburg. The battery was dead. The LeMans was even smaller than my Sunfire. The parking lot there is on a slight incline. Arby's was dead for business that evening, fortunately for me. So I pushed the car up the incline, and down again, jumping in to try to start it. I did this something like 5 times, unsuccessfully, but finally a kindly employee came out and pushed the car for me. That worked better, I got it started, and I made it home. This illustrates more that one should pay attention to one's battery than that one should buy a manual transmission car, in my opinion.
I buy only manual transmission cars for the various reasons others have
given above plus:
It is easier to rock the car to get it out of snow or mud; one gets better
engine breaking going downhill; my cars are less likely to be stolen; our
daughter discovered her "friends" at college don't ask to borrow her manual
("May I borrow your car?" It's a stick shift. "Oh...well, thanks anyway.")
In fact, I can't think of any advantages to an automatic shift. Why are we
having this discussion...? 8^}
The only time I wish I had an automatic is when I'm in a stop-and-go traffic jam. If I had that to do every day, I'd buy an automatic for sure.
Re #82: I've rocked an automatic. It's not that hard, though you do have to lead the direction change a little with the shifter to make up for the time it takes the transmission to shift. Check the owner's manual first, though; the internal design of some automatics makes rocking the car a very bad idea. Some Hondas, for example, have a rather unique automatic transmission design that doesn't tolerate rocking well. Re #83: I agree with you there. Stop and go traffic gets tedious in a hurry in a manual shift car.
Having a hand on the manual transmission can delay you changing the station on the radio when the commercials come on (and yes, I do change the station when the commercials come on the NPR stations).
I think the dominance of the automatic transmission comes about at the stage of learning to drive. Shifting is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced. This is frustrating for both the learner and the instructor! Of course, the learner can't realize the advantages of a manual transmission, while the instructor can finish the job more easily (for the same pay) with an automatic. I learned to drive before there were good automatic transmissions, and of course our daughter wanted to learn to drive with what was available, which meant a stick shift.
Re #83-84:
The other two major disadvantages of manual transmissions are:
* Harder to goto full acceleration when needed (ie, when a traffic signal
changes at *exactly* the wrong moment)
* No "park" gear. Parking brake cables invariably go bad or get stuck
eventually; and parking with the gears engaged would disallow things
like remote starting.
I can "rock" an automatic transmission car out of the snow more easily than a manual. I had practice during my time in Houghton. On the other hand, I can get quick acceleration from a manual much more quickly and reliably than from an automatic. (Just downshift.) The only time I've had a problem with the emergency brake is when it wasn't used for a long time. With a manual, you're always using the emergency brake.
The fog light thing still has me bugged. If anyone is a fan of fog lights, please explain a little more. I honestly don't understand them. I find it to be an irritant to have them on my car. Maybe I'm missing something?
I'm beginning to suspect that the purpose of fog lights is to make your car more easily seen in fog, not to make it easier for you to see. But I can't recall approaching a car using fog lights, so I can't test the hypothesis. (I put my headlights on earlier, and leave them on later, even though both cars have daytime running lights, to make it easier for others to see me.)
I always thought amber foglamps helped me see better in fog.
Re #90: The idea of fog lamps is to get them low enough to get the light under the fog. There's often a clear area just above the ground. A lot of factory fog lamps aren't very effective, though; they're more for looks. One of the things that annoys me about automatics is under situations where you're using a lot of throttle at a steady speed (like climbing a hill) they tend to 'hunt' between gears. On the Ford van I used to own I'd get into situations where it would lose speed in 3rd, downshift to 2nd, gain speed, upshift to 3rd, lose speed, downshift to 2nd... I ended up manually locking it in 2nd anyway, so I might as well have had a manual.
There was a study several years ago that showed people who use their headlights all the time get in less accidents. I've never been convinced the headlights made the difference. People who do things like that are probably more careful drivers, and a car with headlights on in the daytime was unusual. It seemed to me those things probably accounted for the safety difference. Anyway, Canada passed a law saying all cars have to have headlights on all the time. Maybe it's just for new cars; I'm not sure. I think it was backed by GM. GM came out with the marketing scheme of daytime running lights (DRL), and new GM cars have all had them for about 7 or 8 years now. The headlights aren't on; just the parking lights. I don't know of any follow-up studies on whether DRLs make a difference. I assume they don't when I'm driving. I also turn on my headlights earlier than many, and leave them on later than many. Headlights don't cost very much so I don't care if I wear them out faster. Another thing I do, if I don't have my headlights on, but see a few other cars which do, I turn mine on too. If other people think they need them, maybe they really do.
IIRC, daytime running lights is also headlights on low-power as well as parking lights, but not on fully.
The idea of fog lights is to set the light low so there is not direct return glare, and to use yellow lights as that is supposedly not reflected as greatly. I have read that these effects are illusionary. However I have found that trying to use high-beams in a snow storm is much worse than using low-beams, so there are better and worse ways to use illumination. (On some occasions I have opened the driver side door slightly so that I can follow the centerline of the road, which was not visible in the snow squall ahead.)
re resp:94: I just found that out today. DRLs are low-power headlights. I had thought they were just the parking lights. re resp:95: I agree with all you said, and have done the same things as well. Have you ever found fog lights, specifically, to be useful to you, Rane?
Re #96: Depending on the car, the DRLs are just the parking lights. I believe the Corvette is one of them; anything which meets the standard for brightness etc. will do. The first-generation GM DRLs were horribly bright and aimed way too high. I wanted something which could fry those things every time they got in my rear-view mirror.
I've never driven a car with fog lights, so I cannot compare personally. I was speaking from things I've read and observed about other cars.
My cars headlights automatically come on when it is dark, or when I put the car in gear.
My car's headlights are on all the time but at lower power (DRL). This is good because I am the type of person who forgets to turn on my headlights on rainy grey days when lights probably do make a difference.
DRL = Daytime Running Lights. I have 'em and I like 'em.
Re resp:93: I think Volvo has had DRLs longer than GM, but I'm not sure. My '86 Volvo doesn't have them, but I often drive during the day with the headlights on anyway. This is mainly because the headlights and parking lights go off when I turn off the key, so I often don't bother to ever turn them off manually.
Subarus do have DRL - and they go off with the key. I have on occasion failed to turn on my headlights at dusk because they are already on - but the taillights aren't! The dash lights do come on with the headlights, but I usually have the dash lights turned very low so may not notice that until it gets much darker.
Any lights that are left on in my car when it's not running -- dome light, map light, headlights -- will be shut off automatically after 20 minutes. It's nothing that shows up in advertising anywhere. I had to read the owner's manual a couple of times to find it. It's just a nice thing they stuck in the car, probably because there's a computer in the car anyway and it cost little to add it. re resp:102: If my car turned off the headlights automatically when I turn off the key, I'd leave them on all the time, too.
According to my owner's manual, I only need to change the oil every 7500 miles. Mostly I drive on highways or 55 mph county roads. However, I've heard from some people I should ignore that and change the oil every 3000 miles. Comments?
Well, it cant hurt to change the oil at 3000 and it doesnt cost that much.
Subaru recommends service at 7,500 mile intervals (and also 6-month intervals - which I ignore as 6-months always comes before 7,500 miles). My last Subaru went for 180,000 miles before rust made it too dangerous to drive - and the engine was quite sound and used little oil even at that mileage. I would say that if 7,500 miles is recommended for your car, jep, that is what you should use. You are wasting money, oil and your time to change oil more often (and it does "hurt" to create more used oil needlessly).
Jim collects other people's used oil for use in his car, which he figures might reduce engine life but the body will fall apart first anyway. We drive it a few hundred miles a year (twice to Detroit and back). He just adds more oil when it is low.
I would follow the manufacturer's instructions. If you start driving on dirt roads or on lots of short trips, switch to the "severe service" recommendation, though. Oil, oil filters, and engines have improved since 3,000 miles was the universal rule -- back when that was being recommended, some cars didn't even *have* an oil filter. Some car companies are recommending change intervals as long as 10,000 miles these days. If the manufacturer has special instructions for when the first oil change is supposed to happen, be especially attentive to those. The first couple thousand miles are a "break-in" period for the engine, and it's important to break it in properly to get the best life out of it. Sometimes the factory oil fill is a special break-in oil that's meant to be left in for a specific number of miles. (Incidentally, friction in the engine is higher during the break-in period. You'll probably find that your fuel economy gradually improves over the next month or two.)
I'm hoping the mileage improves. I got about 30 mpg on my 2nd tank of gas, which was almost all highway miles. That's not too impressive in a car rated at 37.
It'll probably get better as the car loosens up. Also, I think the EPA milage estimate is biased pretty heavily towards 55 mph driving, so you may never quite reach their number if you're like me and spend a lot of time up around 70 or 75.
I get great gas mileage at 55 mph. The problem is there aren't too many long distance journies one is likely to make at 55.
I drive 30-35 miles to work, one way. About 25 of it is in 55 mph speed zones. Unfortunately it's not a straight shot; I have to stop or slow down greatly (90 degree turns) about a dozen times on my way.
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Re #112: Yup. The original justification for the double-nickel, energy savings, was true. My Civic gets 36-37 mpg at 70 mph. On occasions when I've taken long drives on two-lane highways with a 55 mph limit, I've squeaked out 40 mpg.
That's a very undramatic gain.
It's about 10%. If gas prices suddenly went up 10% I bet you'd complain at least a little about it. ;> Also, the Civic hatchback is a fairly low-drag car. Cd is 0.36, which is decent but not exceptional, but the frontal area is only 1.9 square meters. A less aerodynamic car might see a bigger difference.
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That's pretty cool. I doubt I'll ever buy another Honda, though. The shape of their seatbacks is incompatible with the shape of my back.
Re #117: No. I don't track it that closely, but gas prices seem to
fluctuate by 10% all the time.
I'm not ragging on your car, by the way, just being unimpressed
by the claimed benefits of the 55mph speed limit. Good riddance.
You have several choices: