Deals on Wheels

This is a bit of old news, but we found another Hilux on the internets a few months ago, and it had a lot more going for it in the features department than ours did, so we bought it with the intention of selling our original one. Our original one had better wheels on it than the new one did, so I swapped them over and then put the original one up for sale on said internets. We had a lot of interested people coming around, but only to kick tires as it turned out, so after a couple months of that, it became expedient that we come up with a new plan.

The new plan was this: Trade it in at a dealership for something that would be easier to sell. Brilliant right? I did some investigating and we soon found ourselves at Kramer Mazda looking at some slightly used Mazda 3 Sports. The folks at Kramer were overstocked on used vehicles at the time, and had many of them on clearance, so we were hoping to take full advantage of that.

It's important not to go into a car dealership without a plan of attack. They have many cunning devices for getting money out of your pocket and into their hands. They'll always tell you they have someone else coming to look at the very vehicle you are looking at later that day, and they'll always have to clear everything with some unseen manager in the back. This manager is always painted as a most cruel taskmaster who is not above torturing his employees if they approach him with an offer that is substandard. I find the best way to combat these devices is to spend a whole afternoon with one salesman. The more of his time you eat up, the more valuable you become. Other customers have come and gone while he's been with you, and he doesn't want to have spent all that time on you and not get a sale out of it. If you spend half a day with a guy and then act like you're losing interest at the end, you'll be surprised what kind of deals come your way.

Our basic strategy this time around was to get a vehicle that's about 2 years old and then sell it when it gets to be about 4 years old. By the time it's 2 years old, the initial depreciation is gone, and if we can keep it in good condition, and keep the kms low, it shouldn't depreciate that much over the 2 or so years that we own it. I'm sure it will, but not as much as those first two years if we bought brand new. We also wanted to get one that has low kms on it to begin with, and that came fully loaded with features, so that it will be easier to sell when the time comes.

We thought we had found the one we were going to get, a Mazda 3 Sport GT, but then we found another Mazda 3 Sport GT that had the luxury package and about 20 000 less kms on it, for only $1600 more, so we went with that one. The combination of the dealership being over stocked, and us spending the better part of the day with the salesman (which included about an hour of strait haggling), led to a pretty good deal in the end. Of course he had to clear it with his manager first, and he came back wiping away his tears and limping, but it was miraculously approved, thanks to his heroic efforts.

The new Mazda is by far the nicest car we've owned, and we're all pretty happy with it. It may be harder to part with in a year and half as we've planned, but we'll see I guess. We really like our newer Hilux too, but we may try and sell that and become a one car family again sometime soon. We're not desperate to do it though, and It's nice to have something that can cart a bunch of stuff around, so we'd only sell it if the right offer came in. See, we're no longer over stocked on Hilux's, and my manager, although she's pretty, will indeed torture me if I sell it for too little.