We're a one-car family. Basically since we got married we've had this happy green Protege. It's a 1997 model with 200,000 miles on it, and it's been very good to us. It's been reliable. It fits us. It's been just great for our budget-conscious family. We've taken many trips in it. I replaced the front axles. We've had adventures. Sigh. Good ol' car.
There were two main problems, though. The first was relatively minor. Fitting three car seats in the backseat and two adults up front made us look like a family of circus clowns. You know. The ones that fit 30 clowns into a teeny car. Those kinds. Not the scary kinds. That problem was about image, and not a very big deal. It would have been a really big deal if we found ourselves expecting another, though (which we aren't).
The second problem was that it started to make some bad engine noises. The kinds of noises that make you think of money.
So, after much deliberation and weeks of examining every possible scenario, we felt that America needed us to buy a new car. Well, not American car companies, but the Americans employed by a Japanese company. That's still America, right?
We bought another Mazda. Ironically, we bought a Mazda that's built on the same frame as our Protege. But in this case, they added a third row in place of a trunk. Who needs a trunk anyway? Say hello to the Mazda5.
Anybody who knows Mazdas knows they try to build them so they're fun to drive. That's their thing. And I've been sold on them since they stopped making boring cars like the Protege and started making fun cars that only have numbers in their names. Something about using numbers instead of words makes a car more enjoyable to drive, I guess.
We're completely satisfied with our car. It's awesome. It's got enough space for us all. It's fun to drive. It does what we hoped it would do. I think we'll be sticking with Mazdas for awhile.
This was our first new car. We bought it right off the dealer lot. We learned some valuable lessons from the experience, despite the fact that I've sold new cars myself. You've heard these before, but I'll reiterate.
Know every number and every option before walking into the dealership. Know your credit score, what your interest rate should be, how much you're willing to pay, what your downpayment is, what all the available incentives are, etc., etc.
Don't go to the dealership as part of your discovery process. Go after your mind is made up and you're prepared to buy. It's the very last step in buying a car. When I sold cars, almost everybody that bought a car left the dealership saying, "I didn't expect to buy a car today!" That meant they weren't prepared for the negotiations.
Finally, don't go to Cardinale Way Mazda. I expect salespeople to want my money. I expect them to play hardball sometimes. The problem here was that there were clear indications of institutionalized lying. I'm referring to salespeople using printed forms that showed the wrong prices or incentives. Or salespeople who say that they'll throw something into the deal and then back out afterward claiming that the dealership "lost money" by selling us the car. (By the way, that's the most absurd claim salespeople make, but they make it all the time. As if they themselves don't know all the numbers either and accidentally let a car off their lot for less than they paid for it. If it were true it would also mean the salesperson made no commission, which is clearly not the case.)
So, I'll repeat my final piece of advice in big letters:
Don't go to Cardinale Way Mazda at Superstition Springs
There. That should do it.
