Car Dealers

Yesterday, I had the privilege of taking a new friend who recently moved here from Africa, used car shopping. He's perfectly capable of buying a car on his own. He's well-spoken, intelligent, in his 40's, and certainly commands more initial don't screw with me power than I would in the situation. As we all know, women are not usually respected by most car salesmen... They talk directly to the males!

As my friend is new to the country, though, and really did not want to be taken advantage of, he was smart to ask someone to come along with him and I was better at negotiating on his behalf than I ever thought I would be. It actually can be fun helping someone else choose a car! Used car salesmen, on the other hand, are not all that much fun.

With Sporty along, who truly was the the expert among us, we looked at several lots and many, many vehicles. My friend was very quiet, asking questions where appropriate and really allowing me to take the lead on negotiations. We found some decent cars, even were given some decent offers within the price range, but it wasn't until we found a Honda van that my friend seemed close to ready to really want to talk numbers. Before we could, though, he needed to show the van to his wife.

Here's where this story gets interesting for me. Honda let us just take the van to where my friend lives to show it to his wife and kids. You know how the dealer usually joins you for a test drive? Not at this place. We did the test drive without the dealer too. At one point I said, "we're going to take the van to Disney World," and the dealer said, "see you in a couple months."

Okay, we didn't go to Disney. We took a test drive. Later, we brought it to where he lives so his wife could see it and get her own test drive. She liked it. Other than a copy of my friends I.D., Honda had no other information on us, not even our phone numbers. Never in all my life have I been given the keys to a car and just told to return it later.

I suppose we look innocent enough and the van isn't a new car. Here's the thing though, I'm a felon on supervision. I can't believe there's a Honda dealership that wouldn't even require someone to leave something behind if they are taking a car without a salesman with them. They were right that they could trust us, I may be a felon, but I have no intention of ever commuting another crime again in my life. I do not think like a criminal or want things the way a criminal does - I prefer to earn them.

We returned the van and my friend will work on his financing tomorrow. It's a good investment for him and his family. It felt good to spend the day helping him and, as Sporty put it to me, I'd hope someone would do something similar for me if I needed that kind of help in another country. 

One more positive came out of it, the guy at Honda offered me a job. Actually I'm sure he was joking, but he said it numerous times. He also said that I am a very talented negotiator. Yeah, I was pretty hardcore in negotiating - even if I am a female!!