Feedback is Good

I got a letter from Toyota of Lewisville last week requesting I come by for a visit and see if they couldn't put me in a NEW CAR! for less of a car payment than I have now. Can we say Lease anyone??? If they couldn't meet or beat our interest rate and or car payment they would give us a gift card or 2 free oil changes!!! This tickled my funny bone, I decided to respond to this mass mailing with a letter of my own.

I wrote him back proclaimed my shock and amazement that he would even contact me. Since I did blog about our pretty rotten experience last spring. Found here under search for a car.  If you read that post you would know they wanted to charge us 18% interest (oh but it was so hidden in the paperwork it took me a while to find it).  They did not listen to our needs. We have large pieces of medical equipment to tote around for Sweet Potato. When they refused to move on price or interest rate and tried to sell us a convertible we heard the message "We don't want to sell you a car today."

This afternoon I got a reply to my letter I was tickled pink. True to their word I had proven they couldn't put me in a new car for less than what I was paying now and they sent me a Chili's gift card so My Knight in Shining Armor and I can go out to dinner. Also Scott asked me to call at my earliest convenience, so I did. We had a frank talk about how our "not buying a car experience" was. How his sales rep really didn't listen to our needs and was trying to sell us something, anything. Scott was polite and said all the right things, he wants us to move from having our service done at Toyota of Plano back to Lewisville. Ya he noticed we shifted, we used to get our old Toyota occasionally serviced at Lewisville but ya know Toyota of Plano has these great coupons for oil changes... it's not that tough a call. If I had a need for another car anytime soon I might go back to Toyota of Lewisville, but not until I had my financing in place first.

I'd like to put in a note that we did buy a car last spring from Huffines Kia Denton. They were open honest and upfront about their costs they listened to our needs. We did at that time have financing in place, and we didn't play the game.  We called them, asked to take the car to our mechanic, set up that appointment, took the car to the mechanic, came back with a short list of repairs that needed to be made. They repaired the car gave it a 30 day warranty and sold it to us the day after it was repaired. Being missionaries we appreciate like minded people and the sales rep and My  Knight in Shining Armor hit it off.  It was a GOOD car buying experience

Ahh The Search For a Car

So were at that place where our cars are getting beat into the ground, over 150k miles on each :-).  We know our cars have basically no trade-in value, $500.00 but it's a great car! We really regret having to turn in a V6 engine and the reliability it has given us over the years.

Last night we visited a Kia dealer who swears he can put us in a new Soul for the car payment we can afford. Not that I want a car payment! but I will if I must.  I'm perusing Kelly Blue book for realistic car prices.Oh wait no realistic prices are out there! I'm flabbergasted at how much used cars are commanding. We also decided to try the Toyota dealership that Ed Wallace  recommends He's the local guru of cars on the radio, so off to Toyota of Lewisville we went today. 

Fred shows us a nice Rav 4 2006 low mileage etc. Drives nice I hadn't considered a Rav 4 because I thought the gas mileage would be horrible, but it's the same as the car I'm driving now so no loss, no gain. Were honest about how much we have, how much we can pay, etc. We like the car It looks like a good buy.  Sweet Potato is IN LOVE  with it.  We ask the sale rep to run the numbers for us.  He runs off and does it, comes back with a car payment 76$ above what we said we could pay. We'd need 3k more down payment to even get it within range.  So we ask if he can move a bit on the price cause it's way too high.

He comes back with a sedan that we might be able to afford. But we don't want a Sedan we like the Rav 4, the Matrix 5, a hatchback type is in order. Sweet potato's medical equipment must go with us where ever we go and it takes up 3 cubic feet easy.  He goes off comes back with another car we really don't' want.

So we go home and I'm looking at the paper work he gave us, I realize there is no interest rate on this paper work.. curious I go to Kelly Blue book car loan calculator and punch in the numbers.  I put it on Used Car loan rates. A rate of 3.16% comes up so I use 4%... car payment for what we would be financing is below our requested payment. Himmm... I punch in 6% still within range, 8% slightly above... I'm thinking are car loans at more than 8% these days?? wow that's a lot. But wait....were still waaaaaaayyyyyy under the chart of car payments they have displayed on this paper. So I keep upping the interest rate I finally got the car payment they were displaying with 18% interest.  SERIOUSLY?????   This tells me they really don't want to sell us this car 18% is outrageous.

Ed Wallace I trusted you to send me to someone who would be fair and honest. I feel betrayed at this moment. We have great credit! We only owe on the house.  I could put the balance of this car on my 1% credit card, and have a car payment I could afford. Shhh don't tell Dave Ramsey I still have A credit card.  Yet they Toyota of Lewisville is trying to charge me a usury rate of interest.  Sorry Ed I'm thinking you need to have a chat with whoever in charge cause your both getting some bad press here...

Well I don't think they will be getting my business unless they want to be more realistic on interest rates.  I'm so glad we walked away and that we had an idea of what is realistic for us before we went in. We can go down to one car and deal with the hassle that is. I'm grateful I didn't have to take on more debt and we can just keep looking till we find someone willing to work with us.  Till then we'll just keep paying ourselves the car payment and waiting till this craziness in used car prices goes away, or we can find a car we can afford for cash.