Hey, Big Spender
Jun. 10th, 2006 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xifengSo, the mundanities first: Took Callice to the vet this morning. The vet said that, from what I described, he thought it was likely behavioral in nature and would thus take longer for her to be broken of it, but he gave me an antibiotic anyway; if she's not sick, it won't hurt her, but if she has a bladder infection, it will help. (He couldn't get a urine sample from her, and anything I could bring from the litter box would be useless because all the litter would make it hard to analyze.)
Also, teh m0mmy and I saw the skinny little black cat who maybe doesn't have a home; this cat is a total spaz, though watching it is always fun. It's also fairly good-natured and once tried to follow Mom into the house: "Ooh, is there anything nice in there? Can I come in? Wouldn't you like to have a little cat like me?"
Went into work, played with Illustrator for half an hour. Bleh.
But now, onto the REAL event of today.
Mom and I went into town with the intention of just looking at used Toyotas. We did find one we liked, and I said I'd like to shop around and take my time, since I had never bought a car before and it is, after all, a major purchase. The salesman got points for speaking to me, not to Mom, and for not being too aggressive or condescending to me because I'm female-bodied. However, he did bring out the big guns: specifically, the general sales manager who wanted to make quota for Saturday.
The list price of the car (an '05 Toyota Corolla) was $14995, which was a little steeper than I wanted to pay. The trade-in from the old BMW would have been $600, and I was planning on a down payment of $2500.
GSM: What can I do to sell this car to you today?
l33: Depends on whether I can get it for $13500.
GSM: (clearly surprised) ...I'll see what I can do, ma'am.
Most of you never knew my father, and I don't know if![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dethorats or treyvadi will remember this about him, since they never saw him in this context, but this is very much the same kind of thing he would have said in this situation. The H***** blood breeds true, it would seem.
I did not get $13500, which was fine; I really wanted $13750. The GSM was willing to settle for $13800, and so it was that I signed the papers. Mom had to co-sign, because my credit history is very new and nonexistent, but that's pretty much a technicality because I will be the one paying for the car. The payment isn't as low as I hoped, but it is within my price range, and the interest rate KICKS ASS because they relied on Mom's credit, which rules.
What this basically means is that I made them take the BMW for almost twice what it's actually worth (we were surprised that they were even willing to give $600 for the BMW) and, in general, made out like a bandit.
The title should reach us in the next two weeks--after that point, I can register the car. Mom needs to mail the title of the BMW to them, and I need to call the insurance agent's office on Monday and see what they can do for me.
The car itself is silver (the official color is Lunar Mist, which I like to say in a faggoty voice to make Mom giggle) and in general says, "Ladies, I have a job. I am a good provider. Clearly, you would like to partake of my genetic material." Also, it has A/C, and I don't care if a car is made out of sticks and old cabbages as long as it has A/C. The gas mileage is comparable to what I got on the BMW, which is great--not too shabby for a non-diesel! All in all, it's a good car, and I look forward to driving it for many years.
Sorry,augustuscaesar, no pictures tonight, but maybe if you do your homework and learn your periphrastics, some will be up for you tomorrow.
Also, teh m0mmy and I saw the skinny little black cat who maybe doesn't have a home; this cat is a total spaz, though watching it is always fun. It's also fairly good-natured and once tried to follow Mom into the house: "Ooh, is there anything nice in there? Can I come in? Wouldn't you like to have a little cat like me?"
Went into work, played with Illustrator for half an hour. Bleh.
But now, onto the REAL event of today.
Mom and I went into town with the intention of just looking at used Toyotas. We did find one we liked, and I said I'd like to shop around and take my time, since I had never bought a car before and it is, after all, a major purchase. The salesman got points for speaking to me, not to Mom, and for not being too aggressive or condescending to me because I'm female-bodied. However, he did bring out the big guns: specifically, the general sales manager who wanted to make quota for Saturday.
The list price of the car (an '05 Toyota Corolla) was $14995, which was a little steeper than I wanted to pay. The trade-in from the old BMW would have been $600, and I was planning on a down payment of $2500.
GSM: What can I do to sell this car to you today?
l33: Depends on whether I can get it for $13500.
GSM: (clearly surprised) ...I'll see what I can do, ma'am.
Most of you never knew my father, and I don't know if
dethorats or treyvadi will remember this about him, since they never saw him in this context, but this is very much the same kind of thing he would have said in this situation. The H***** blood breeds true, it would seem.I did not get $13500, which was fine; I really wanted $13750. The GSM was willing to settle for $13800, and so it was that I signed the papers. Mom had to co-sign, because my credit history is very new and nonexistent, but that's pretty much a technicality because I will be the one paying for the car. The payment isn't as low as I hoped, but it is within my price range, and the interest rate KICKS ASS because they relied on Mom's credit, which rules.
What this basically means is that I made them take the BMW for almost twice what it's actually worth (we were surprised that they were even willing to give $600 for the BMW) and, in general, made out like a bandit.
The title should reach us in the next two weeks--after that point, I can register the car. Mom needs to mail the title of the BMW to them, and I need to call the insurance agent's office on Monday and see what they can do for me.
The car itself is silver (the official color is Lunar Mist, which I like to say in a faggoty voice to make Mom giggle) and in general says, "Ladies, I have a job. I am a good provider. Clearly, you would like to partake of my genetic material." Also, it has A/C, and I don't care if a car is made out of sticks and old cabbages as long as it has A/C. The gas mileage is comparable to what I got on the BMW, which is great--not too shabby for a non-diesel! All in all, it's a good car, and I look forward to driving it for many years.
Sorry,
augustuscaesar, no pictures tonight, but maybe if you do your homework and learn your periphrastics, some will be up for you tomorrow.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 10:20 pm (UTC)If I were anybody else, you might be facing a horrible Jewish joke, but I'm a wee bit too politically correct - shocking, isn't it? - to say anything about that. Moving on, you did really well. Used or not, a Toyota is going to last you forever; until my mom's 1989 Corolla was totaled, it lasted her for almost fourteen years and it would have lasted her probably five or six more, at the minimum. The way most people are about their cars, they don't realize that yes, that hunk of gas-powered metal and plastic is an investment, and it would be wise to take good care of it and to invest wisely to start with, which you already did, obviously, in buying a Toyota.
I did buy my car from my uncle, and he was the only one who'd be willing to sell me an automatic transmission car with air conditioning for $1,000. The woman who was going to buy it before me was prepared to give him about five hundred dollars more. Of course, now that it's in teenage hands, its value has probably dipped to an inconvenient $500. -_-6
**makes a happy seahorse noise - no, I don't know what that is, either - and squeezes you back**
no subject
Date: 2006-06-13 12:06 am (UTC)Yeah, that was pretty much my reasoning; I wanted something that would get decent gas mileage, because abstracting is a traveling sort of job, and I wanted something that would be fairly low-maintenance (and here I'm talking above and beyond things like regular oil changes and putting more air in the tires and all that). Also, since the safety record is very good (plus I'm over 25 and female-bodied), it means my insurance isn't much more than what I was paying for the BMW.
Well, understandably. The only way you'll get that kind of price is through your kin or through a for-sale-by-owner deal (be careful if you ever go that route, you might get a lemon). Odds are that your uncle probably already took the hit on the depreciation; unlike real estate, cars don't go up in value the older they get. As for Sandrock's actual value, it depends on what you do to him and what the usual Kelly Blue Book price is for his year, make, and model.
(Why yes I am from Indiana. And obsessed with cars. Why do you ask?)
*cuddles her cute seahorse*