The fishy saga continues!
Good morning. This is me. If you skimmed back to this morning's entry you'd see that fishyman has reason to be congratulated. He's made the big step to be getting his vehicle. He did a real good job getting the vehicle, because we know that it is especially hard for him to be spending money especially on big budget items. He did very well.I spent the last two days wheeling and dealing. I went on-line on Sunday after Rich left for his superbowl game ... and I did some serious researching until all hours of the night. I found 25 dealers in the area and I went through all their web sites to see if they were offering the vehicle we were looking at. That was a big deal to itself. Rich and I worked together in the morning about narrowing down his selection. It turned out the best one seemed to be the Toyota Highlander Limited. After a lot of more looking we found there was a package #8 that showed all the options that had to do with navigational, music, sunroof and a bunch of other stuff.
We also were looking and found that the navigational system most often came with the entertainment deal and almost all came with the option for the towing package. After more research we found that we needed to get the hitch separately, but that came really down the line.
We had gone through all the options from the Edmunds site and we checked out the reviews and then we did a lot of side-by-side comparisons ... everything can be compared. It's really an awesome site.
We looked at pictures and costs, and then like we said we went back over all the 25 sites and found what they had to offer; we found if they had our vehicle specially loaded and within the ball park on price. If everything was in place we'd send them a note to get ahold of us, then we went on with our business.
We had been compiling a list that turned out to be 5 pages long of all the different sites we visited and the relevant information on the vehicles they had to offer. And, then we took that list and we pulled out 9 that worked ... a lot of the sites were disqualified for one reason or another.
The next thing was to talk to Rich ... we had to make sure we were running from the same page. I wanted to have contol over this part and then I told him when I narrowed down the playing range that I would give him the locations and the rest would be up to him. I also asked him to send people that would be calling his number to me. That worked out real good.
The next part was to make a new list of contacts that were being made.
This was a list that turned out to be 6 pages long and they were really crammed in there. As we were making and receiving calls I'd put my notes on a scratch paper, and then after 2-3 calls I'd transfer the information on the master list. I numbered all the contacts made so in the end there were 54 calls made before we went to a dealer. I also numbered the contacts from the first sheets so I could cross-reference them and keep the information for each vehicle with the contact list and I could go back to the first sheet and note how many contacts I'd made and when in order they'd come in. It was really pretty well organized.
Rich and I would talk through the day as we cross-checked things. He threw me a loop at the end. He'd gone out to visit one place, and they tried to sell him a different vehicle ... instead of the Highlander they tried to sell him a 4-runner. This played poorly into all the work I'd done with the other, but I figured that if he wanted to look at it that would be ok and we'd work it in ... so about the time he came home and we were going out to look, we had put a couple of tabs for him to read on the reviews for the 4-runner and we'd put up the side-by-side comparison lists again for him to look over. He always hesitates when I present him with more work, but I'd read the reviews and I thought the 4-runner be great if we were doing off-track running, but for regular purposes the Highlander was better.
We did set it up so he'd get a chance to drive in both while we were at the dealer. It tuned out due to gas and smallest of the interior of the 4-runner he chose to go with the Highlander. I was really happy because I liked that one so much better.
The dealer we'd chosen turned out to be the one who was probably closest to us - Continental. They were just $60 off the lowest, and had one of the two best sales people to work with all day. There was a lot of calling back and forth and the lady stayed very patient. There was another guy who I loved, but at one point close to suggesting we stop there first, he got on his manager to talk to me about the difference in price between the Continental and Oak Lawn. I'd had this beautiful repoire going with him and we even found he knew Rich through JVS, but his manager got on the phone and blew everything in about 3 minutes flat. He seemed cranky and abrupt and insulted almost and he said quickly and flatly he couldn't make a deal. So instead of any kind of negotiation of a chance even for me to come back and save face, he killed the deal.
I felt terrible in talking to him and I felt bad for the salesman who'd worked all day. There was one more call back from the dealership - my guy Ray was going to put me in touch with the Internet manager who'd made the original connection for me, but he didn't end up calling back before we decided to go with the other dealer. It helped too because in the meantime I'd added a lot more checking into things as to the hitch and the one at Continental made the connection in that they had the best deal there. As it turned out we didn't go with the hitch because of extra expense, but by then we already well into negotiation.
The person we ended up talking to was Ed instead of Marjean the Internet person at Continental. She'd been very patient and encouraging and knowledgeable to and like I said was our second choice. She turned us to Ed, because he's connected with Rich earlier in the process and was more the salesman where it appeared that Marjean did the phone/computer work. That was fine with us. I liked Ed from the start and he really worked patiently with the both of us to get our business.
Sometime soon after Rich and us had been in the vehicle and he'd made his decision to go with the Highlander, Ed sweetened the pie. Rich had already started the negotiation process and Ed came back with an incentive on '08's instead of an '09 and that was a sizeable $2500, plus there was another cost difference of $1000, so a deal at $3500 less on a vehicle that biggest and only real difference was that it didn't offer the entertainment system. Rich had never been sold on that too, so by then it was a mute point. I told him I really liked the dark gray on the '09 instead of the '08's sand color and that I liked the newer vehicles entertainment center while acknowledging it was never needed with Rich's dealings. The price was just too sizeable for those few complaints to be really considered. I emphasized several times it had to be Rich's choice ... we also decided soon on that we'd not take any negative role while things were happening at the dealer - like in getting cranky or obstinate. We made it clear we were going to be there to support.
It was hard though in that we were on the last day of the '08 incentive so he had to make a choice last night or lose it. He had had a bad day and was under then a lot of his own pressure.
This is not to say that I wasn't active. We went a long way in trying to help Rich make decisions. Ed would be laying out the options, we kept our baby calmer, and Rich got to do everything he had to be doing. Like I said before I thought he did a real good job. He impressed me with all his ability to negotiate ... not on one price he wanted very badly, but I scolded Ed a bit at one point, because he was making it seem that Rich had gotten a special deal, on one particular thing that wasn't and it was important in sales to give the other person some feeling that he was making a good deal instead of being just "stuck" with a sour face.
I don't know if it was that directly or something else, but there were some nice surprises with the bundle down the line ... a little more give with Rich's bargaining and he even made sure we got dinner. That was a nice thing to do. Rich did ALL the talking with the finance guy and he did ALL the talking when it came to walking him around the car showing him what was what with Ed. Again they had made a good match by this time.
I was tired by the end so just hanging out quietly. I'd been so full throttle into things until things had smoothed themself out.
After we got into the car to leave Ed was by our door, so I extended equally my hand to shake it with him. That was the nicest thing of all for us personally. Ed thanked me very sincerely for all the work I'd done in helping to make the deal. That really was a nice thing for him to do. He was just watching us out the door, but he took the time to appreciate me.
Because the whole deal is for our fishyman there wasn't anything else directly that was on or for me, except the satisfaction of knowing I contributed something toward what eventually happened that was positive ... Rich really did need the car to haul the boat in very short order.
So, we were well pleased. We left the pictures in his blog and in ours this morning and we gave him lot's of extra kissy type massages. We're so proud of fishyman he's on his way to making his dreams come true!
posted by Ann Marie @ 2/03/2009 09:16:00 AM
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