Minivan Madness

Yes we are the proud owners of a 2007 Chrysler Town and Country, but it was quite the journey to get there. Where to begin.... It began with the birth of Christoper and seeing how the car seats in the back of the Jeep weren't going to work out that much. So the search began with me looking at car lots on-line and a few visits to some different dealerships over the past 6 months or so. One of the lots that we stopped at was Odaniels. We get the jeep serviced there and my mom has bought two Sebrings and her Prowler from them. I talked to one sales guy and he seemed real genuine and not like a typical used car sales weasel, so whenever I would go back to the lot I would ask for him. We were still looking at our finances and seeing what we could afford to do for the longest time, and seeing if we could put a little away for a down payment, but with medical bills coming in from Christopher's birth, that wasn't an option. We noticed that Odaniel's had a sale going on with a few program cars that were pretty affordable. Yeah they didn't have the DVD and the automatic doors on them, but they were 2007 and had low miles and also had the stow and go that Jen likes. We were finally ready to get serious about buying one after seeing the the jeep sitting at 99,500 miles and hearing from a couple different people that if it does reach 100,000 miles that it will effect the trade in a lot. We we get my mom to watch the kids on Monday and head over to Odaniels. I didn't see anything on the website, but they are getting new stuff in all the time and I wasn't sure how updated their site was. We get to the lot and find out that they are closed for the night, but there is one sales guy who stuck around late doing something. We talk to him and find out that the 2007 vans with low miles for the good price were all gone. Crap. "But" he says they are expecting a few more on a truck in the morning. We tell him we are going to stop by the next day. On the way home we decided to stop by another lot that also has 2007 program minivans on their lot, but they don't look to be in that good of shape and the sales guy gave me the heebeejeebies (typical used car sales guy), but it was good to know that if we couldn't work out a deal at Odaniels that there was an option across the street. So anyway Tuesday night after work I stop by Odaniels and talk to my sales guy Mark. I had told him what time I was going to be there, but for some reason he started talking to this other guy right before I got there. So he is trying to deal with both of us at the same time. He shows me the 3 vans "right off the truck" and they aren't too bad. The two that are the better price are both silver so we don't have to worry about trying to decide what color is better. The only difference is one had a power driver's seat, satellite radio, and different cloth interior, but is also had 5000 more miles that the other one. I tell him I like the one with the stain resistant interior and the 23000 miles. I don' t really need a power seat and satellite radio. He puts that one on the fast track for clean-up so when we come back it will be good to go.
back to work on the deal, but looking at our schedule it would have been next week that both of us would have been Wednesday neither he nor I are available to look at the van so I figure sure as shit it will be sold then. But last night we were able to enlist my mom again to watch the kids. We show up to the lot to talk to Mark, again with a time I am going to be there, and again he is dealing with someone else. Yeah we were a little late getting there but still. He pulls up the van and is starting to put on the plates for a test drive. I am pointing out to Jen some of the features when I noticed the wrong interior.... wrong silver van. So he pulls up the other one and we take it out for a test drive. Pretty nice van with a pretty good ride in the middle and back seats (I was hopping around the different seats). We get back to the lot ready to sit down and crunch some numbers but he is still dealing with the other family. This is when I notice that it is already 8:00pm. One, they close at 8:00pm and two, Christoper likes to eat about now. We are considering comingavailable. But the other family gets finished pretty quick so we sit down to see what we can do. The one thing that Mark tells me is that he gave me the wrong price for the van, but since he told me the price that he would honor that and take the bite on his commission. Sales guy B.S. or honest sales guy? I am thinking honest sales guy. (yeah he is that good). So we are giving him information and the sales manager takes the jeep out for a look over and test drive. I am thinking that since we get all of our service at Odaniels that they have pulled the service records and know some of the laundry list of problems with the jeep, but they didn't. The only thing he really notices is when you stop the front end shudders, which I attributed to bad shocks. Yeah I know about other problems with the jeep, but I am not about to volunteer that information. We still owed a couple grand on the jeep and they gave us about $4,200 for the trade in which I thought was a pretty good deal (and close to the book value). I was going to dicker with him, but knowing the work they would have to put into it and the wrong price problem he had I didn't beat him up too much. So an hour of sign this, enter that in the computer, sign this, sign this, sign this it's now 9:00 and we are both getting pretty tired. Both Jen and I are dealing with Sinus issues and our heads are spinning. So finally he hands us off to the financing lady who is also stuck there late because of us. We were already approved from our bank at 4.75 %, but they were able to find another place that got us 4.4%. We could have gotten even lower rate, but making it a 66 month loan rather than a 60 got us the higher rate, but a lower monthly payment. Of course they tried to sell us extended warranties, rust proofing, gift certificates, and all kinds of other add-ons and we just said "pass". The van is still under factory warranty for another 10,000 miles so that is pretty good and I really trust the Chrysler product. Both Jen and I ask a million questions because we want to make sure everything is correct, but also because we are both very tired and want to make sure that we don't sign anything we don't want to. Jen recalls a deal that her parents had done late at night with a car lot where things did not turn out well at all, so she is hesitant. I might have to ask her parents about that sometime. Overall we made out very well and are paying just $11 more a month than we were currently paying for the Jeep which is one thing that I wanted to do. Actually I was trying to make the payment lower, but that $11 more a month I will take. So we are escorted out the door by the finance lady and we head back across the lot. Mark is already transferring our license plate and we start to unload the jeep into the van. Both Jen and I kept double,triple,quadruple checking the jeep to make sure we got everything out of it. It's kind of like when we leave a hotel room we have to check the drawers (even if we didn't use them) 10 times. There was a tear shed in memory of the jeep, but I won't say if it was Jen or I. I think the thing that I will miss the most is the four wheel drive in the winter. So we get home at 10:00 to pandelerium.. Christopher was crying because he was WAAAYYY overdue for a feeding. I almost told mom to give him some out of the fridge but it's so hard to say that because she didn't know how close we were to being home. I have a hard time heating up the "white gold" if I know Jen is near. The one thing that we find out is the van is longer than the jeep. The front end is almost touching the freezer that just allows for the garage door to close. Looks like we are either going to swap car parking in the garage or I have to reorganize stuff and move the freezer. The boys go crazy when I show them the new van and they want to play in it, but I tell them it's bedtime and take them upstairs after profusely thanking my mom for being so late and her having to deal with fussy boys. After putting the boys to bed Jen is getting some stuff ready for the next day and realizes that she can't find her purse. We tear apart the new van, and the house and can't find it. I tell her that it is probably sitting in Mark's office or the finance lady's office, but there is always a chance that she left it in the van after the test drive and someone took it, or that we left it on the parking lot when we were transferring crap from the jeep. Along with credit cards is alot of cash from the garage sale that we were going to deposit on the way to the car lot but the bank was closed. Also, Jen's work keys that cost hundreds of dollars to replace. So Jen is freaked. I am too,but there isn't much we can do about it now, we will just have to wait for the morning. Jen crashes on the couch at11:30 but of course wakes up at 2:00 and is up for hours. She even goes online to our bank to make sure that no one has withdrawn any money. Lucky for us it was in the finance lady's office. I am going to pick it up today. Whew............ So we are one step closer to paying a visit to the Q's this summer, but I hear they might be heading this way too... stay tuned