Gone are the days of the practical mom car. Apparently, I am now a sports car driver. None of this was planned. It all started on Thursday when I got this email:
Dear Cori,
My name is Nicole and I work for Walser Mazda. I am working on a project with my manager to acquire CX-9's for our inventory, we are not having any luck with auctions. Would you be open in meeting with us so that we can look at purchasing your CX-9?
I look forward to hearing back from you!
My name is Nicole and I work for Walser Mazda. I am working on a project with my manager to acquire CX-9's for our inventory, we are not having any luck with auctions. Would you be open in meeting with us so that we can look at purchasing your CX-9?
I look forward to hearing back from you!
No one has ever asked to buy my car from me before. But I was curious, so I took the bait. I called her back and asked if she was for real. She said she indeed was. We set up a time for me to bring my car in to get an estimate. No obligation on my part. I figured it couldn't hurt. I brought it in that day.
To be honest, I was a little apprehensive, skeptical, and distrustful. I'm the type that buys anything someone nice is trying to sell. It's just my nature. I don't like to hurt people's feelings. I have the word "sucker" stamped on my forehead apparently. I know I'm an easy target. That's why I was extremely cautious when I walked into the dealership. I felt as though I were walking straight into a scam somehow.
But I wasn't. They were totally legit. They weren't forceful about anything. The sales guy who helped me asked if I was looking to upgrade and I told him I wasn't. In fact, I was hoping to downgrade. If I in fact traded in my car, which I wasn't planning on doing 5 hours ago until someone popped the thought into my head, I wanted to lower my payments, pay no money out of pocket and get a newer car. I figured with a declaration like that that they would laugh me off the lot. Except they didn't. He was more than happy to help me achieve each of my points.
How odd, I thought. A car dealer who means what he says and isn't trying to pull a fast one on me. I pushed on. We looked at several cars in their inventory online. He printed up a cost analysis sheet for me and sent me on my way. I told him I couldn't make any decisions today, that I'd discuss all this with my husband and call him back. Zero commitment on my part. I walked away without a hook in my mouth. He had no idea if he would ever see me again.
Except that he did. The very next morning, in fact.
Chuck and I looked over the spreadsheet he gave me. We would actually be making out pretty good if we traded-in our current car. Why hadn't we thought of that. Plus, it had at least 3 problems with it that were needing attention and large chunks of our disposable income to fix. Just last week we were wondering how on earth we were going to fix this current car problem we were experiencing. In steps the mystery email suggesting we trade it in. Problem solved.
We were at the dealership the next morning at 9 o'clock. By 11:30 we were out the door with our new Mazda 3. A newer car, loaded, with very low miles, cheaper than our last car. And much less mom-like. Unbelievable. Less than 24 hours earlier, we didn't even know we wanted a new car.
I just love the spontaneity of life.
