Buying cars

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Have you had any amusing car-buying experiences?

-- Anonymous, June 26, 2000

Answers

Not really amusing but an example that does not prove the rule: after having owned my own business for a number of years in Northampton and then going almost into bankruptcy, it was only at Northampton Honda where I could purchase a new car (at a great rate, no less!) from a very respectful, intelligent, and generous man, a Rick Mard.

P.S. Bee Season was reviewed in last Sunday's NYTimes Book Review.

-- Anonymous, June 26, 2000


We went to Berkeley Toyota and said we wanted to buy a Tercel. The dealer said he had checked on-line with all the other Toyota dealers in the state, and there were none to be had anywhere. If we wanted one, we were going to have to put our names on a waiting list and wait for a month.

We went to S&K Toyota in Hayward and bought a Tercel the next day. The guys at S&K Toyota had half a dozen on the lot. Go figure. Don't go to Berkeley Toyota.

-- Anonymous, June 26, 2000


When the Yugo was first introduced, a friend of mine and I went down to check it out at the dealership. A salesman began giving us his schpiel and, as if to cap his thesis on why we should buy the Yugo right then and there, slapped the hood of the car and loudly declared, "This is the best-selling car coming out of Yugoslavia today!"

A pause, and then my friend slapped the same hood and loudly responded, "This is the only car coming out of Yugoslavia today!"

Everyone in the showroom--including the other salespeople--exploded with laughter.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000


Most of my car experiences have had tragic ends, so no car buying experiences. But J. and I were driving on the New Jersey Turnpike the other day. J hates Volvos, "faculty cars" he calls them. We were talking about potential cars, and what we like and all of a sudden he points to a car in front of us "that's nice" he says. J has bad eyes and couldn't see the Volvo logo on the back. I burst out laughing. I guess Volvo is doing a decent job of changing its image. It was a sporty looking car, not tanklike. But it seems like they have a love em or hate em thing going.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

Speaking of cars, I don't care about cars. Who is "Alvin" and what is the allusion to the book Bee Season made by the other people? Does one need to (pardon the pun) Wade through the entire log to understand all of this? Is there an index? A life index. Wow. That would be wierd. I also have a theory that Journals are like some Marxist dialect...thesis + antitheses = synthesis which then becomes part of some other unstable relation. Which brings me to my A.D.H.D. point--does Journal writing end when you get married? I keep a journal that has taken numerous "sabaticals"(sp)when I'd get serious with someone. Like nothing happened that was worthy of writing about. Journals, often, seem like a never-ending chase. In closing, yes, Volvo sounds like some Latin American euphimism for female gonads. That's why I own an Oscar Meyer weiner-mobile...no one can make a joke about that.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000


You live in the Bay area? Why is this a problem? Get her a vintage Volkswagen. If the Beetle's too small, how bout a Squareback wagon, or a Bus? Nothing's cooler than vintage Volkswagens, they run and run, and you never have to put water in the radiator; they're air-cooled!!!!

Lexus. What a pile of trash! And don't listen to that Ralph Nader, I think he was ON speed when he wrote "Unsafe At Any Speed" (referring to the swing-axle rear suspension common to older Beetles, and Chevrolet Corsairs, found to be dangerous by the safety gestapo Consumer's Union - thereby eliminating any chance of a decent rear-engine car making it in the US market. Now we all drive Honda Civvics. That's progress.)

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000


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