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11:17 pm - FRI 4/26/02
Moving back into the world of motorized transportation
Well, it's not a 100-percent done deal yet--I won't consider it "official" until money and keys change hands--but at this writing, it looks like Jim is moving back into the world of four-wheeled transportation.

Yesterday morning, I went with Marie (And a young man, I guess along for the ride to make sure I wasn't a psycho or something) to see Greg-The-Car-Guy, who operates out of his house, about a mile-and-a-half from my apartment.

Greg, who I'd only talked to on the phone at that point, didn't look at all like I'd imagined; I'd somehow qotten the idea he'd be a young, blonde "dude", and in actuality, he's a middle aged, slightly heavy-set, hispanic man.

Anyway, Greg looked the car over. He had us run the engine while he checked under the hood, looked around the car, under the car, and gave a running assessment of what he was seeing.

He said, in so many words, that the car is fine. He didn't see anything that looked like a "fix" covering up a serious problem, or anything that looked like trouble in the near future. And he said Toyotas "run forever", and when the time does come for repairs, they're easy to fix, and since there are a million of them out there, parts are readily available.

It all sounded pretty good to me.

He said, at one point, that he was sorry he didn't leave me with "much to bargain with", but when he asked what price they were asking, told me I should double check the figures. "People always want to sell at 'retail' and buy at 'wholesale'".

(Victor had told me the Blue Book value for the car was $3200, and he was selling it at $2400 because of the mileage.)

So when I went to work, I checked out a couple of the car buyer guides at work (We didn't have the Blue Book in, but we did have an Edmunds and a NADA), and it quickly became apparent that Victor had indeed been quoting the "retail" price; Neither book I looked at went back to 90, but a 91 Corolla had a "private owner" price of $2350 in the Edmunds Guide, while the low-end retail price of a 92 in the NADA was $3000.

Armed with that info, I called Victor and Maria back. Got Maria on the phone, and offered $2000 for the car. She said she'd tell Victor when he came home--he was at class, I believe she said--and I could call back tomorrow (For some reason, I wanted them to call me back, so I gave them my number).

So today, after playing a little bit of phone tag, I ended up talking to Victor while he was at work (He works at a car dealership. I believe it was Nissan, though I'm not sure).

He quoted me a price from Carfax of something like over $4000 for retail, and $2200 for wholesale. Then he asked me again what my offer was, and I repeated my $2000 figure.

I told him what my little guides had turned up, actually talking over him at one point when he started to interrupt (I wasn't mad or anything, I just wanted to make sure he knew I had some figures to throw out there too), and he countered with $2200, and I said, "Good enough", and the deal was done.

(And I want to go further into this exciting vehicular saga, but its grown quite late, and I have to open at work tomorrow, in addition to having the second and final exciting weekend of Crossing The Line in the evening. So I'll have to address the details of this exchange, and it's repercussions in my life, at a later date in time.)

 

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