Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Now, before anyone freaks out. No we are not pregnant.

Gina's car, the beloved 1992 Oldsmobile Achieva SL has driven it's last trip. And replacing it is a sporty new(ish) 2005 Pontiac Vibe.

Back in July, we were getting the Achieva an oil change at Fast Eddies in Lansing. They changed the oil and told us that our "soft metal plugs" were leaking. We checked under the care and didn't really see any leaks. We hadn't seen any leaks under the car for the weeks leading up to these grease monkeys telling us about them.

So we decided to chance the drive back to Tejas. Obviously, we made it home just fine. However, during one of the 100+ days that we had in August, Gina was driving back from Longview, TX and saw that the car was heating up too much. So she added some anti-freeze and went about her way. With my Corolla I have occasionally had to add anti-freeze after a very hot summer, it seems to just evaporate over time.

However, the Achieva was needing more and more anti-freeze, weekly basically. But there wasn't an evident leak. With having to run the A/C in the car there is always that puddle of water under the car, which is in just about the same spot as the anti-freeze leak. The two were mixing and making the anti-freeze leak harder to see.

Well, not wanting Gina to be stranded on the way to or from Longview. I took the car into the shop yesterday. The same shop where I now know the manager by name and for now he has won our future business. He has to be the most honest mechanic that I have worked with.

They checked out the Achieva and informed me that the "metal plugs" in the front and the rear of the engine are corroded. Which, is causing the leak.

He proceeded to inform me that the cost of replacing the front plugs would be around $400. Replacing the rear plugs would be around $1200. Why so much for the rear plugs? Well apparently the design of the Achieva engine is such that the transmission would need to be removed to get to the rear plugs.

This means that it would be at least $1,600 to fix the Achieva. Then there was the caveat that Corey said, "Due to the amount of corrosion under the hood, I can't guarantee that we wouldn't break anything trying to remove the exhaust manifold to get to the front plugs or the transmission for the rear plugs."

So that means between $1,600 - $2,000 (assuming they only break the exhaust manifold related items).

Yeah, not a good idea to put another $1,600 into a 14 year old car with 143k miles on it.

Gina and I had already decided that before we drive home again in the summer that we want a new car. However, we had been planning to replace the Achieva in like 6 months.

I of course asked Corey about whether or not replacing the front plugs would get us by. He told me that it would fix the primary leak. However, that he couldn't guarantee that the rear plugs wouldn't empty out and dump all of the anti-freeze within about 4 minutes. Of course, a few minutes afterwards the block would crack.

Corey also told me that he wouldn't want to be driving that thing on the highway for the fear that the plugs could go at anytime. Leaving us with a boat anchor.

I called Gina and gave her the news. She didn't take it very well. I am sure that I wouldn't be happy if she called to tell me that my Ghetto Sled had died or couldn't be repaired. She was volunteering at the shelter that morning and was just finishing up lunch when I had called her.

She came home and got ready to go out and look at cars. I looked online using AutoTrader.com, Cars.com and a few local car dealership websites. I found a few good deals here and there. Nothing spectacular though.

It was around 1:30 or so I guess when we left the house. We headed to I-35 and made our way to south Austin. There is this stretch there along the road where there are about five to seven dealerships in a row.

We figured we would start with South Point Pontiac, as Gina wanted a Pontiac Vibe. Go straight to the affiliated dealership. We saw some nice news ones sitting there when we first pulled up. Around $21k, too much for what we wanted to spend. Not to mention that buying a car brand-new is just not a good idea. It depreciates immensely as soon as you drive it off the lot.

We asked them about used Vibes. They showed us a Kia Spectra and a Dodge Calibur. Again, not a Vibe. Finally someone from the Used Car builing walked out and showed us a Silver 2005 Pontiac Vibe. It had 36k miles on it, the inside of the car had some wear and tear on it. The rear cargo area had some soda stains in it. Oh yeah, and there was an Orange in the back, yes a piece of produce.

We took the car for a test drive. It was zippy for only being a "four banger", only having "four squirrels" under the hood.

Gina loved the car. That meant it was time to delve into negotiations. The first thing I found interesting about South Point was that they didn't have any prices on their used cars. This apparently was explained by the sales guy (I don't remember his name) that the lack of prices on the cars was a benefit. It was to supposed to allow them to make sure we could get the payment that we wanted.

Gina wanted a payment in the $250 range. So we negotiated with the sales guy on the price of the car for about an hour, at least. The first 30 minutes we focused on the payment. Which kept on being in the $325-$350 range.

The price of the car was apparently originally like $17,999. But they had sent out a "Roach Flyer" announcing a $2,000 off sale. This means that the car was $15,999.

Since Gina's dad is selling cars, she called him. He told us that a 2005 Pontiac Vibe at the very most should be like $14,700 retail. That means if the car is in great condition it should have been priced at $14,700. Apparently, severe wear and tear have it valued at $12,000.

Well the vehichle they showed us and that we negotiated over was not in great condition. It wasn't in terrible condition. But it had high mileage for a vehicle that age. It had definitely been a rental vehicle (Enterprise is whom they bought it from at auction).

What is funny is that the manager (again, don't remember the name) was from Michigan. And had sold cars in Lansing at one point. There had been this dealership near the corner of Logan and Holmes, I think that is where he said that he used to sell cars. They apparently were desperate enough to follow us out of the building and ask to speak to Gina's dad. With whom we had been consulting with throughout the course of negotiations.

The simple fact of the matter is, we didn't want to pay more than $13,000 + TTL for the vehicle. They were willing to sell it to us for $14,100 (ish) + TTL. They told us that they couldn't give us $13,000, because it would mean they would not get enough for the car vs what they paid. Obviously, this can't be entirely true. I took the statement to mean that they wouldn't be able to make the margin/profit that they needed to make on the car @ $13,000.

Did I mention that on the way to the dealership (now about 2 hours prior) I told Gina that I was starving? So I was hoping we could grab a bite to eat. But no such luck, Gina did want a soda. We grabbed a diet coke from Arby's and decided on what to do next.

I have to say that I was very proud of Gina during the negotiations. She stuck to her guns and didn't back down. And on top of that we had a nice little "Good Cop, Bad Cop" going with the sales guy. I was the "Good Cop". While, gina was the "Bad Cop".

We decided to take a look at another dealership, you know before feeding me. We did a once more around the block and got back to the start of the line of dealerships.

Now, it isn't necessarily a closely guarded secret that the Pontiac Vibe is basically the same vehicle as the Toyota Matrix. And when I say "basically the same vehicle" I don't mean same kind of vehicle. I mean it is the Pontiac style of the Matrix. They get made at the same plant(s) in California. The Geo Prism is a different style of the Corolla. The whole thing is quite interesting, I will have to do a post about it later.

The Toyota dealership was two dealerships down from South Point. We pulled into Champion Toyota and were very pleased to see that they were not very busy. Reason being is that less customers means a better chance for us to make a deal.

We parked and walked up, Gina saw this little Chevy Aveo that she was loving. First thing I noticed was that they had the price tag hanging from the rearview mirror. That was the first of many differences between Champion and South Point. Given the distance between the two dealerships I was quite suprised at how differently the two organizations were run. And yet, not suprised.

A nice older sales guy walked up to us and offered to help us out, Jack Whitmire. He immediately got out their little golf cart and began to drive us around their lot to look for any used Matrix vehicles. They had none, but he did drive us by two Pontiac Vibes. A silver one and a burgundy red.

The silver one was $16,991 and the burgundy was $15,991. Both of which were more than $13,000. However, both were in immaculate condition in comparison to the one over at South Point. No produce in the back, they had plastic on the floor, they had obviously been vacummed. It was almost like they wanted to sell the car. Go figure.

We told Jack a little bit about our recent encountour with the guys over at South Point. He told us that he could probably get the price of the burgundy down to $14,991. The burgundy Vibe had 22k miles on it. And the condition of the car was much better than the one at South Point.

Jack had our licenses copied to allow us test drive the car. Gina wanted to test out the Aveo first. Which suprisingly is a really nice little car. I might have to look at them as an alterantive to the Yaris, but I am a pretty die-hard Toyota fan these days.

The Aveo was a manual. I don't drive stick and probably never will. Gina does drive manual on occasion. I just about got whiplash while she remembered how to drive stick. Anyway, I survived and we decided that the Aveo is too small.

The next test drive the the burgundy Vibe. It drove as well as the other we had driven about 2 hours before. But the reason I bring all of this up is because when we test drove with South Point, the sales guy came with us. This meant that we couldn't talk very freely about what we thought about the car.

Jack's salesmanship style or Champion's standard operating procedure has much less pressure. Jack allowed us to drive the cars by ourselves. This allowed Gina and I to speak very freely about the vehicles. This was the second big difference that I noticed between the two dealerships.

After the test drive we walked into the Used Sales office building to speak with Jack. This was when I noticed the third big difference. The sales office at Champion was modern. Each sales person had their own little cubicle area. They each had computers on their desks. They had a water cooler and coffee machine in a little waiting room in the back.

While the South Point Used Sales office building honestly looked like a hole. It was actually a little reminiscent of Boiler Room. There were no set desks or cubicles. There were just seemingly randomly placed tables and mis-matching chairs. There were no computers on the desks. No water cooler or coffee machines, just a coke machine.

Did I mention that Jack offered us a soda out of a little fridge that he had near his desk?

We began the negotiation process with Jack. Which was much less pressured than the one with South Point. Jack had some carbon copy based documents that looked very standard. The South Point guy had some very crappy copied documents.

Jack explained the sales process to us immediately. The South Point guy was more interested in getting us to agree in principle to the price.

A good deal of this difference could be derrived from these two things.

1. Jack is a retired gentleman, who doesn't NEED the money from this sale to survive. Thus, he can afford to cut us a deal and not PRESSURE us. The South Point guy was younger, an immigrant from Mexico (he has been in Austin for about 10 years).

2. Champion is actually regional brand name of Auto Nation. A nation-wide auto sales company. This means that their procedures and forms are standardized. South Point is just one dealership and obviously is more on the shady side, upholding the saying "slimy, like a used car salesman".

We got a good price on the car. A decent amount for the trade-in on the Achieva. The checkout process in the finance office took a bit longer than I would have liked. Again, remember I was starving at 12:00. It was about 9:00 or so when we got out of there.

We headed home. I convinced Gina to go to see a midnight showing of PCU at the Alamo Drafthouse with me. I had a very tastey salad with chicken. Gina had a good turkey & avocado wrap (i stole her chips and salsa). Oh yeah, we had mozzarella sticks too.

The movie was good, but it was a very long day. I nodded off at least once for a couple of minutes, Gina fell asleep a few times.

That is basically the end of the day and the story.

On Monday (tomorrow) we will take the Achieva over to Champion Toyota and drop it off. I just hope we don't have to get it towed there, knock on wood.

And the 1st and the 9th too.

September is birthday month for the Benner family. My dad's was on the first, my sister's is on the 9th and mine is on the 23rd.

It's funny, I have always had a very cut and dry look at age. Those who are older than me are OLD.

But now, I am the same age (or a few years older) than the folks I used to regard as OLD. Something that seems to roll around in the back of my head about this time of year (at least since turning 24) is that my Dad was 24 years old when I was born. I couldn't imagine having a kid when I was 24.

And when I turned 25 I realized that I had hit the same age as Russ, a former co-worker. At the time I started working down in Tejas, I was still 19. So 25 seemed like a lifetime away. The years went by quickly and then I found myself the same age as Russ. (Not like that was a bad thing, just sort of a milestone I guess.)

Technically I have already been down here for 8 years. I moved down to Tejas like the last week of December '97, along with good chunk of the greater Lansing area as well. I started work for my former company, Simplified on like Januray 2nd. Meaning that my anniversary date was very easy to remember, January 1st.

Well, in regards to feeling your age, I can't stay up as late as I want to anymore and still wake up bright-eyed in the morning (still doesn't stop me from trying). I went bowling yesterday for the first time in at least 3 months. My high score was 130. No turkeys, just a double out of 4 games. It felt good to throw the ball down the lane and hear that satisfying crash of the pins.

However, this morning I feel stiff and sore. In part because I don't really exercise regularly and didn't bother stretching really before bowling. But it made me feel even older when I got out of bed this morning.

Of course, anyone who reads this who is older than me, will tell me to shut up and wait until I'm their age. Which is appropriate since that is what usually comes out of my mouth when talking to those younger than myself.

So I'm shutting up about how old I feel.

I will try to do a better post tonight, something more worth while. I had a few ideas earlier, but I should have written them down.

They say the.... the... memory, yeah the memory is the first thing to go.

Laterz.