333rd Day
We bought a car. Finally. We started our day early, got out of the house asap, drove to Waukesha. We test-drove the car, talked some numbers, then head to Milwaukee to check out the other car, took out the lunch instead, came back and started a rather lengthened process of getting a car. Waiting, talking and waiting... John was a nice guy. He was genuine and I appreciated gentleness in him. Julia, as always, had the most fun.She boasted her clear, cheerful and loud voice to give commands to all Wilde Honda used car salesmen running around. A couple of them were rushing to see her, laughing, as you can hear her voice from end to end.
Here are the lessons learn from car buying_from search to purchase
* know feature you want and find it from internet
* good search sites: autotempest.com, kbb.com, edmunds.com
* If you find the ones you like from those sites above, go to individual dealer’s site by searching their names on google(website link to the dealer is missing, probably to encourage people to communicate through those aggregate website to earn commission, more money for them, but it’s one added layer for the customers to communicate with the car dealership), ALMOST EVERY dealer has a free carfax report for every car they sell, so you can review carfax report by clicking carfax logo on the listing. I did not know that logo meant the report. Looking at carfax is very helpful. It contains all relevant history to the car you’re interested in such as accident and maintenance history and open recall from the manufacturer.
* If you buy car by financing, do some research on the rate and get your approximate credit score before hand. If you buy a car by cash, bring personal check.
