Local Yokels

As I responded to Lawyer Mom's comment; we drove the Chevy the local dealer has that would be acceptable. Honestly, it was a very nice truck. GM has made a lot of intelligent changes to their vehicle in the last nine years. The transmission especially was very nice and the ride quality was excellent. It was a little twitchy on the road but not bad. It has a "short bed" rather than the longer bed (and wheelbase) that I would prefer but that's not a deal breaker. There is, however, a slight problem or two.

They made it VERY obvious that they wanted to close the deal today. When my wife explained that we wanted to drive a Ford tomorrow, they tightened up even more. Then the salesman started saying bad things about Fords. That's a chump ploy; the kind of thing I expected from the idiot salesman. I haven't had a lot of experience with Fords but we did have one we bought twenty years ago that did 122,000 trouble free miles before we gave it to our son who drove it several more years.

Now the deal that they presented was confusing but didn't look too bad but when I got home and dissected it I figured out that they are cutting about four percent off MSRP and the rest of the deal is direct from GM. Hmmmm, guess they aren't really interested in doing business. This is in an environment where there were no other customers in the building during the two hours we were on the premises.

We are also thinking of buying a little car that might get a bunch better mileage that a big truck so we did test drive a Chevy HHR. It's a little "retro" styled station wagon thing. It was comfortable and has some room for carrying stuff but had the acceleration of an elderly VW. No longer on our list!

All in all, an instructive day. The Chevy is a nice truck. The dealership is going to have to completely change their approach though to remain in contention. Right now, it's the Ford dealer's deal to lose. (However, I have high hopes that they will manage it!) Stay tuned for the next inning. Don't know how many there will be but they will all be fun!

Be careful out there, it's dangerous!