A few weeks ago, I said that I was going to release a post with regards to Blake and I buying our first brand-new car. Honestly, at that time, I hadn’t even written the post. Then, I guess I fell off the face of the Earth because I haven’t even thought about writing for the past few weeks. I’ve sort of hit a rut. Whether that’s Covid-era related, stress related, or whatever sort of emotions are going on in my head, it’s happening and it’s making it hard to do more than just follow through the motions of everyday life. However, I do love this blog and I love being able to share my life with my family and friends that choose to read it. So, since I made a commitment, I’m sticking to it. Without further ado, this is the story of Blake and I getting our brand new car!
Our cars had always been hand-me-downs. Our one car, the Chevrolet Cobalt, well she is now 11 years old and she’s still trucking along. We love her and, although she has had her issues, she has always been reliable to us and continues to be. Now, my brother and his girlfriend are driving her on a temporary basis, but she continues to be a steady constant in our lives and will be until the day she stops. Our other car however, the newer Malibu, well … I’m just going to be honest and tell you that she was a piece of junk. We knew she was a lemon the moment we got her, but one thing led to another and she was ours. We only had the Malibu for a few years, but, already, we had put more money into the Malibu for repairs than we had in the Cobalt. Eventually, the Malibu fully began to shut down. Everything went down the toilet. The power steering, the stereo, the speakers, the power windows, EVERYTHING! I hated the car the moment it came into our lives and I was relieved when Blake finally said that enough was enough and it was time to dump the piece of metal. Now, this all probably seems harsh, but I’ve been bottling up these emotions for a couple of years now, so let me have this rant moment.
Once Blake said those final words, I was on a mission! I wanted a car by the end of the month! We figured that we wanted to upgrade from a car to a small SUV since we needed more room and storage space. We narrowed down our selection to a few companies, but, after visiting some dealerships, we decided on Honda or Subaru.
Before I move on, I need to share my experience with the Toyota in Peterborough. Yes, I’m calling them out here. Toyota was the second dealership that Blake and I visited. We had a wonderful experience at the previous competitors earlier in the day, so we were in a great mood. The salesman that showed us to the Toyota lot was all business. I don’t have a problem with that, but you still need to have a bit of charisma since you’re trying to sell us on spending a large chunk of money. Anyways, we weren’t sure which SUV we were going to settle on, so I asked to see two of their models. The first one didn’t impress me all that much, so I asked to see the second one. Once unlocked, I immediately hopped in to see how it felt. Was it comfortable? What was the cargo space like? What were the sightlines like for the driver? The sort of questions you need to know when you plan on buying a new car. Once inside, the salesman tapped on the window, so I rolled it down.
He said, “You ARE aware that every car you get inside we have to thoroughly clean right? It’s the law now.”
Once I had picked my jaw up off of the floor...well from behind my mask...I told him that I was aware of that.
His response was, “Yes, so try not to get into too many cars.”
The moment this conversation ended, the appointment was over in my mind. I climbed out of the car, but still remained pleasant since Blake was unaware of what had happened and I still wanted to know the information; for a complete comparison. Once I was out of the car, Blake got the salesman to open the trunk and a wasp nest dropped out of it. That didn’t impress Blake very much because the salesman was just like “Oh”. That’s it…
Anyways, we decided to not go with Toyota, so that awful salesman and that awful experience is in our past. We still had future salesmen to deal with, so onward we went. Now that we had narrowed it down to Honda Cr-V and Subaru Outback, we began our initial assessment of prices. We visited a couple of different Honda and Subaru dealerships so that we could compare. Surprisingly, the prices were very similar, so it was all dependent on our personal preferences. Blake and I had differing opinions when it came to this. He preferred the Outback and I really loved the storage space that was available in the Cr-V. It was definitely a difficult decision since the price wasn’t a factor and they are very similar cars overall. The aspects of the Outback that Blake preferred were not enough of a selling point for us; so we ultimately decided to go with the Honda Cr-V.
Once we had made the decision, we scheduled a day off of work and made plans to buy the car. First, we stopped at the Peterborough dealership. Blake and I always try to be big supporters of local businesses, so it was important to us to give them an opportunity. Also, Jessica (shout-out) was very friendly and made us feel comfortable with minimal pressure. As well, the Peterborough Honda said that they would price-match so that’s always awesome! There was a little bit of miscommunication between my dad and myself with regards to what the best price of the car would be … so I either seemed naive or a complete hard-ass at the negotiation meetings. I’m unsure, but either way it did, in fact, work out to our favor in the end. Once we got an initial price from Peterborough Honda, which included trade-in for the Malibu, we headed to Clarington Honda. We wanted a second price to assist with the negotiations or to at least prove that we were getting the best price possible at Peterborough Honda. As well, we had a great meeting previously with one of their sales representatives and he gave us a great price for the trade in and the overall cost for the car. The only downfall of that appointment was when he brought in the assistant sales manager which was a type-A douchebag and was the epitome of what a stereotypical car salesman was. Anyways, we didn’t want to hold another’s actions against the pleasant salesman that assisted us the first time. My cousin had also previously worked at the Clarington dealership, so we were using that to our advantage.
Once we got to Clarington, other than remembering who we were, the sales rep pretended like everything we had discussed previously was a figment of our imaginations. He also tried to screw us on the packages we were looking at by secretly adding in things that we didn’t need nor asked for. I had done my research, so there was no wool being pulled over these eyes! Once everything was said and done, their price was over $2000 more than the Peterborough Honda was offering us. For me, the appointment was over 5 minutes into the meeting because, like I said previously, he completely disregarded the initial meeting. Additionally, he brought that asshole of an assistant manager into play who pretty much told us that the numbers he had initially given us were fake and filled with false promises that had zero guarantees involved. Argh! My blood is boiling, reliving all of this. Blake and I were livid walking out of there. We “bitched” the whole way home and immediately called Jessica back and told her that she had a deal!
We had the car by the end of the following week! It was amazing! It IS amazing! We really like the car. We got the basic package since our only criteria was that we did NOT want leather seats. Even just going up one package would ensure that we got leather seats, so we decided to settle on not having all of the bells and whistles … which we really don’t need at this point in our lives. Honestly, the only upgrade I wish we had - which I’m surprised about - is the button that automatically closes the trunk. Oh well! Next car I guess!
Anywho … we encourage everyone to visit Trent Valley Honda in Peterborough if you are ever looking for a new car. They are great there and definitely ask for Jessica because she was so patient and accommodating to us. We can’t wait to travel around with this car and grow into it in these next few years when we begin growing our family!
