July 26, 2012: Car Shopping Day Two

I called the shop this morning to discuss the availability of the Chevy Sonic that we want.  Drew, our consultant, said that the colours that we wanted were not able to be found in the area but they had some options.  We had originally planned on getting together on Saturday morning to discuss but with the trip out to the lake house happening shortly thereafter on Saturday we decided that that wouldn’t work and set something up for this evening.

We found out that the Chevy Spark, which we had been interested in but had not released yet, released this morning and they want us to drive it this evening.  So that was made the plan.

I went to work and worked through lunch so that I could leave early to deal with the car.

I went up to the Chevy dealer after work and ended up sitting there for an hour and a half and no one brought around the car for me to test drive.  I sat in the Spark that was in the show room.  I was told that my rep was busy and that it would just be twenty or thirty minutes but it went to an hour and a half and when someone finally came to check on me they went to find my rep when they should have gotten me the car to test drive.  That was a really long time with no one checking on me.  I had been offered another rep, but only when I had been there a few minutes and was told only a few minutes longer.  Why another rep was needed to see a car was beyond me.

I was going to stay a while longer but right then Dominica called and needed the Acadia so that she could go out shopping this evening and I had to get home to watch the girls as well.  So I had to leave immediately, already being out much longer than we had intended, and just give up on the appointment.

I got home and already the dealer was calling to apologize for ignoring us and missing the appointment (which was extra annoying since it was the dealer, and not us, pushing for an appointment as soon as possible.)  They asked if we could look at the car tomorrow.  I explained that tomorrow my in-laws were flying into town and Saturday we were leaving for the lake house.  So the window to see the car had really closed on us.

So the dealer decided that they would bring the Spark by our house tonight at nine, after Dominica was done shopping, so that we could both see it, at home, where we could watch the kids for each other while driving it.  We agreed that that would be acceptable and Dominica took off to do her shopping.

While Min was out I did some more research on the car and found that the car we would most likely want, the base model in jalapeno green in automatic, was available from our dealer so I called them and asked to have that exact one brought over so that we could evaluate it and not one “just like it.”  In the Sonic we were looking at the standard which is cheaper and gets better fuel efficiency but in the Spark the green is so cute that Dominica wants to be able to drive it so we have to consider the automatic.

Drew brought the car over at nine and Dominica instantly fell in love with it.  Green exterior and charcoal grey interior with green accents.  Even the stitching on the seats is in green.  It really is well done.  We both took it for a spin and we liked it.  It is not nearly as nice as the Sonic but it is $4,000 less even going with the automatic so that Dominica can drive it and if she drives it we will get even more value out of it as we can put on lower cost, fuel efficient miles more often versus driving the Acadia around.

It only took Dominica a minute to decide that this is the car that she wants.  And while I really want the Sonic turbo in five speed, the cost savings of the Spark makes me happy.  So we decided to go with it.  We told Drew that we would pick it up in the morning, if all goes well with the financing.

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