I’d say both.
And you know this is going to be a slightly longer story than my usual posts.
As you’ve probably guessed, we have a new vehicle at our house – a Honda CR-V. We’d been leasing for years, but the mileage restrictions were becoming a challenge. So, off to buy a car.
We went to the same Honda dealership we’ve been going to for at least 15 years. We love Hondas. We knew what we wanted, if the test drive was smooth. I’d already been online, checked the dealership inventory, and we had decided on a couple of colors, in case one was sold before we arrived. I’d worked with a car buying service and knew how much the car would cost. And I had already talked with our assigned salesman. He knew when we’d be in and was eager to serve us. Exciting, right?
Now, over the years we’ve generally had good experiences at this dealership. Especially when compared to the horror stories we’ve heard from friends. We arrived; met our salesman; he went directly to the two colors we’d chosen and walked us through both the cars. We decided on a beige-gold color and were ready for our test-drive. It was a smooth ride. This is so exciting – this is actually going to be my new vehicle! Now we’re ready for the actually purchase.
I won’t bore you with all the details. Let me just say that somehow we ended up paying a negative equity “fee” on a vehicle we didn’t even own (the lease we turned in). I didn’t realize this until the middle of last night. I guess it had been niggling in the back of my mind all day. How can you have negative equity on something you don’t even own? We had met all our obligations on the lease – all payments, mileage, timeframe. So how did we get charged negative equity?
Yep, this would be the frustrating part. I don’t understand why car buying has to be so hard. Why can’t the dealer just tell you straight and in plain English what they are charging you for and how much they’re making on the sale? I think they deserve a fair profit, but I don’t think I deserve to feel like I’ve been taken advantage of when the deal is done.
I’m working on being excited about my new CR-V. In a few days, I know this will all pass and I’ll be happily driving around in my new CR-V with that new vehicle smell, pushing all kinds of buttons and trying to figure out how to turn on the front wipers and get the one on the back glass to stop. I’ll also be remembering all I’ve learned this time and be relieved that I don’t plan to do this again for a number of years.
Maybe I need a cup of tea…
