My Automotive Experiences

Switching Brands

After seeing a rather detailed listing of things that I'd done with my previous vehicle I am guessing that some visitors to this website are wondering why I don't have another Mazda in my stable. The answer to that is simple: I don't have the money to buy a brand-new Mazda of any kind. NOR do I like the way the new ones look (except for the RX-8). All of the Mazdas manufactured in '03 and '04 have body styles that consist of the flat-panels and harsh angles that are typical of today's automobiles. My love for the 1993 626 ES was due to the nicely rounded styling that it and its sexier sister, the 929, possessed.

So when I went looking around for another car, I tried to find something that:
- had a manual transmission
- had a sunroof
- wasn't shaped like an Aztec temple
- got good mileage
- was brand new
- was definitely inexpensive
- had a decent warranty

I looked at all sorts of sub-compacts that were both domestic and foreign in origin. The lower price that I had set as my goal for this new car had severely restricted my list of choices, however. Some cars lost out because the manufacturer (GM) refused to stock a manual in any car that they had that was worth a damn. In fact, the only cars that I looked at in the Columbia area that had a manual transmission in them were the Saturn Ion, the Hyundai Accent and Elantra, and the Pontiac Vibe.

The Consumer Reports ratings on the first and last vehicles in that list were hardly flattering. The Ion had the added problem of a badly-designed dashboard as well as Saturn's rule about no-haggling on prices. That left the Elantra as the primary candidate for my test driving pleasure.

"Gam sa hamnida!"

About ten days after my accident I drove my rental over to Capitol Imports and started looking at all the Elantras in the parking lot. Most of what they had were the lower-end GLS models with an automatic transmission. The few GTs that they had were the 2004 models with the modified dashboard indicators and were all equipped with automatic transmissions. I realized that I was going to have to ask the staff how long it would take them to get an Elantra with a manual transmission. At this point the reviled car salesman comes into the picture.

Actually, in this case the salesman at Capitol Imports was quite easy to deal with. He dispensed with the question of finding an 03' with a manual by telling me that it was definitely doable and then he let me check out an '04 GT just so I could "get the feel" of it. To his surprise the first thing I did after getting the keys was to open the hood and crawl all over the engine. I spotted all the potential maintenance nightmares right off and was rattling off part names and locations faster than the guy could keep up. The test drive that came afterwards was not all that eventful but it did give me a nice comfort level with the car. I figured that an Elantra would be a pretty good fit for me and set my mind on getting one.

Then the time came for me to go inside and talk turkey. The sales manager was the one that turned out to be the viper in this dealership. Everything with the salesman was going well until we started getting down to the numbers. The sticker price (minus $3000 in rebates, etc) came out to around $16000. That was a little bit more than I wanted to pay, but I figured just for the heck of it I'd let them run with things and see how much they were going to yank me around. The sales manager appeared to have been trained as a master in how to insult a customer.

The guy never ran a credit report on me (my FICO score is impeccable) and when he returned with an initial offer I noted that he'd left the interest rate line of the form blank. The payments would've been somewhere around $500 a month for 48 months, which I couldn't help but laugh out loud at. They argued that since I didn't have a trade-in they were going to have to "do some work" on the financing. I told them no-thanks and left the building.

I suppose that I could've stayed in and argued and haggled, etc. in an effort to bring the price down some, but because their initial offer had been so absolutely insulting to me I was too honked-off to do anything but walk out. Well, it was either do that or berate the sales folks in front of fifteen or so other customers. Believe me, that was tempting...

By the way, I called my bank later that day and quoted the numbers to them. They calculated it out and said that the dealership was asking in excess of 19% interest on the loan. *growl*

Despite the crap that I went through with the sales manager at Capitol Imports I still wanted an Elantra. It best met my requirements for the car I wanted to get. The problem was that Capitol Imports was the only game in town when it came to Hyundais. Then I remembered my Uniway membership and decided to go through them instead. With their assistance I was able to get the Elantra I wanted and paid well below the sticker price quoted to me at the dealership (including taxes, tags and title). I financed the car through my bank and got a pretty good interest rate in the process.

Here are the statistics of my car for those who are curious.

Extended trips made so far in the Elantra GT:
(all trips originate from Lexington, SC)
-  Anderson, SC - three trips
-  Chicago, IL - one trip

Todd Hill
accountant@nabiki.com