If it seems too good to be true ... or ... Impulse buying can be fun

We're a two car family ... at last. Wife's had her little heart set on a Mercedes Benz. Her first car: a Mercedes Benz. Nothing like starting at the top. I was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. She is, shall we say, very persistent.

We saw a Merc C230 some weeks ago. Actually, I liked it. Asking price (at the Toyota dealership where we bought our Camry) was something like $24,000, maybe a little bit more. More than I paid for the Camry, but then she hadn't started her "show no mercy; if they're not bleeding, keep negotiating" negotiations. We walked away.

The search continued on and off. We got moved to the new house. We spent tons on furniture and stuff. Things started to settle down. There's a fly-by-night car dealership down the road. On a drive-by we notice a couple Mercedes there. We stop on a Sunday, and kick the tires on a couple C230s. The cars don't even have asking prices on them, but we decide to give it a second try.

We go back the next Friday. Both C230s are gone. In their place is a 2007 C280 4Matic, white, loaded, clean. We talk with Roger. He's asking $25,000 or something like that. We laugh and say, "adios". He says, "Well, maybe $24,550." We say, "We'll come test drive tomorrow."

Saturday: Roger is busy trying to sell a Dodge Viper, so Lenny helps us. We take a test drive in the Mercedes. I, personally, love the damn car. It only has 15,000 miles. It was a lease car originally. It's got everything: four-wheel drive, automatic transmission, electrically adjustable front seats with memory, sun roof, satellite radio enabled, iPod enabled, side airbags, heated seats (OK, stupid for Houston, but the car originally was sold in Colorado), 3-liter V-6 fuel injected engine. Very, very nice. About six times, maybe seven times better than the Camry, I'm afraid.

I turn the process over to Ms. Cut-throat. I walk away and talk to a guy and his girl-friend who just got back from test driving the red Dodge Viper. He says that he's a Corvette man, but thinks the Viper is cooler. He has to cover his jeans with Vaseline in order to squeeze into the driver's capsule. You don't drive this car; you wear it. He's taking pictures with his phone. I say his girl should be laying on the hood to get the full effect. He says that she just posed for Playboy last week. I say that completely changes the image I had of her laying on the hood. I quickly walk back to see if there's anything left of Wife's salesman.

The price is now thousands lower plus tax, title, and license. Wife says, "We're going home." Relieved, I say, "Great."

We get in the car and she says, "I want that car."

I say, "Me too."

We do a minimal sort of online research and find that Wife's price looks really, really good. Really, really too good. Why do they want to sell that car for that price? Well, Landmark Chevrolet, the largest Chevrolet dealership in the world (according to their billboard) is out of business in Houston. Times are tough. We go back and make Lenny show us a clean CarFax sheet: no reported accidents, no flood damage repaired, no problems ... that anyone's publicly reported. We decide Wife will beat on them again on Monday and we'll see what happens.

She beats on them on Monday. Price is the price. She walks away, hopefully, again. She calls on Tuesday, asking "Are you sure that's the price?"

Answer: "Yes."

Rebuttal: "I'll take it." Monday night I show Wife how to write her first check.

Tuesday, I call insurance company and find that the insurance is $20 per year more than the Camry. Very acceptable. Wife hits dealership again and gets them to confirm that factory warranty is still in effect for another 35,000 miles. She also finds out that the car's due for it's 15,000 mile maintenance,which will cost about $300. That's acceptable. She pulls the trigger on the deal and almost writes a check for $1,000 as earnest money, but her hand is shaking so hard that she has to tear up the first check and start over. Second time's a charm. She calls insurance company and gets that process initiated. She can make final payment the next day and the dealership will help get her home with both cars.

Cut to today: deed is done. Final check written on the first try. Dealership only has one key for car so that's probably another $100 well have to spend to get me a key. She picks me up at Park-and-Ride and I don't recognize her in the new car.

She drives us home after filling the tank for the first time ... $25.00. Not bad.

It's a very, very cool car. Now -- is it too good to be true? Time will tell.

Check two things off the list

Our air shipment arrived at the house after the one false start chronicled in my last post. Wife in a slight panic because they forced her to sign off acceptance of delivery without letting her first check that nothing had been thrown out with the packaging. After cursory look, there doesn't seem to be a problem. We didn't have any small loose items in the air shipment. Mostly it was my clothes, tools, and our computer gear.

Memo to self: when we unpack the sea shipment, we don't even pick up a pen to sign anything until unpackers demonstrate that nothing's been left in the packaging material.

I was all set to connect up our Dell PC when I got home from work last night. I'd carefully packaged the cabling in separate and LABELLED plastic bags. (How good am I?) Everything was going smoothly until I tried to plug in the equipment: UK plugs; US outlets. No workie. Much gnashing of teeth on my part.

So, can't play with computer; let's go pick up new Camry. We toodle the 15-20 minutes or so over to dealership driving our rental Jeep Laredo. Rides like a truck. Steers like a barge. You have a nice view over the guard rails though. Slightly different than my Jag. We meet Gary, our salesman. Our car's clean shiny and waiting. Looks great. I mean GREAT. Gary gives us the once over. Puts the temporary license plate in the back window. Shakes my hand, and we're ready. We decide that since the route home is mostly expressway and Wife's not had a lot of experience with that, that we'd drive the new Toy home and back so she sees the route. We do that and WOW do we love the car. I'm very happy. We get back to the dealership. Plug in Lisa (nee' Fiona) the sat-nav in the Jeep and get Wife set to go. I pull out first; Wife right behind. We putt-putt slowly home. More on why at a later time.

So, new car - check. Air shipment - check.

Now if I just had a house.

A Moving Update

So after two weeks of no time and no energy, I'm finally finding the time to write again. I don't have time still so this is going to be nothing more than bullet points chronicling some of the trials and tribulations since the last entry on 4 August. In that last entry we'd just packed up the house and the loaders were coming the next day.

Tue 5 Aug - Loading went fine. All our stuff fit into 3/4 of a shipping container.

Wed 6 Aug - Cleaners came the following day. We let them in then bailed out to let them do the work.

Thu 7 Aug - Met our landlord and a representative from our relocation company at our apartment for a final inspection. It was a non-event. Landlord was very, very cooperative. In point of fact we'd left the apartment in good shape, but he was going to have to do work to get it ready to rent again after six years ... cracks to be repaired, bathroom fans that don't work, faulty boiler (water heater), kitchen range fan doesn't work, yada-yada. Too bad for him. We're gone.

Fri 8 Aug - Two taxis, compliments of Continental Airlines business class, met us at our hotel. Loaded all our stuff except a set of golf clubs into one taxi. Clubs went in the second ... how bizarre ... but we didn't have to pay for it. No problems leaving UK. Business class flight to Houston fine except Wife and I not sitting together. Breezed through US immigration, which had been a concern originally, got our bags and picked up Jeep Laredo that easily held all our stuff. I'd brought our sat-nav (formally known as Fiona in UK, but now Americanized to Lisa). She took us right to our hotel downtown.

Sat 9 Aug - Met our realtor, Marla, and looked at townhouses near downtown. Nice, nicer than I expected, but still no room to be outside in most of them. Relatively expensive too ... $400,000 sort of ... but big. Also looked north of city at some houses. Drove back out north after finishing and looked at cars. Dealerships closed on Saturday for some strange reason, but managed to talk to Toyota and to Chevrolet dealers just to pick up glossy brochures.

Sun 10 Aug - Realtor took us to look at houses way north of city. An hour commute or more. Liked the houses, but didn't love any of them. Cities were Spring, The Woodlands. Then west of city to Katy. None we loved there either ... except one model home for $650,000 on a lake that we would've bought if we could have moved in in less than nine months.

Mon 11 Aug - My first day at work. Surprised to find that I have a private mini-office with a super view of Houston. It is on the 43rd floor after all. Also found that my mobile phone is a Blackberry that allows me to receive emails, take pictures, and other stuff I'm not smart enough to figure out. Also found that I have a laptop. I'm not a big laptop fan, but I think it's going to turn our good at least in the short run. Had a whole series of meetings with people including my new boss to start to get me up to speed. By that night I really started to feel poorly. Felt like flu coming on.

Tues 12 Aug - Woke up feeling awful: stomach ache, aches and pains, feverish. Rallied as best I could and made it to work. Had luncheon meeting with two vendor reps that I'll be dealing with. I suffered through lunch eating only soup. Managed to hang in until 3pm then met Wife at hotel. She'd checked out at noonish. We migrated to corporate apartment about 15 minutes from work. OK place. One bedroom. Fairly clean. Better than a hotel ... and lots cheaper. We found a Kroger a couple miles away and laid in some supplies. I crashed. First day of no house hunting.

Wed 13 Aug - I'm feeling only marginally better, but went house hunting. Visited houses northwest of city and found two that were 'possibles'. One single floor one (Pink Brick House) I really liked, but it was built in 1998 and Wife was afraid we were inheriting someone else's problems. Other two story we liked (Red Brick House), but not good enough to go with. Cheap though: $243,000.

Thu 14 Aug - Worked until about 1:30pm then met Wife for more house hunting. Visited more townhouses. Saw one we loved, but right at intersection of two busy streets. Darn it. It's the first townhouse I really felt like buying even though it was $400,000+.

Fri 15 Aug - My day off. Drove south of city to Pearland with our realtor and hit the jackpot. Saw a house on a lake that we loved and another even prettier one, but with no back yard. We were sold. Brand new houses buying from a builder who we thought was anxious to sell. Excitement reigned.





Sat 16 Aug This day is a fog, but I know I thought I bought a car. I researched online and found a demo 2008 Camry that looked like a good price. We drove to Calvert Toyota and "Gary" brought it around for us. It has a moon roof that I'm not thrilled about and some other do-dads. Bad part: it's filthy. Looked like someone had had a coffee fight in the front seat and even stains on the ceiling. I know they can get that out, so we take test drive. I talk him down to $21,500 and we call it done. Then I try to pay for it with my AmEx card. Gary says, "Can't take credit cards." OK, well, I think I can work that out online. Then Gary asks, "Have you got insurance?" I say, "No." I use his computer and look up an agent online. It's just before 5pm and I call them. Can't help because they're closing, but transfer me to 24-hour help line. They can't help me because we have UK licenses and I'm honest when I say we've had an accident in the last year. Gary says, "No prob. We'll work it all out Monday." In the mean time Wife has looked out on the lot and found a 2009 Camry for the same price as the 2008 one I just bought. She is not amused. We drive home and I listen to litany of what I bad deal I made and how she doesn't like the dirt and how it has 7000 miles, not 5000 like he told us originally, and on and on.

Sun 17 Aug After a sleepless night worrying about pretty much everything, but especially about the car, I call Gary and tell him deal's off, but that I'll be out Monday to buy a 2009 from him. I actually did feel better.

Then I get online and start researching the houses we looked at. Oh OH. Several websites talking about a landfill in the area and the problems with odor that that particular subdivision has been having. A bit of time with Google Map and I figure out that our two houses are across the road from the site. F--k. We can't believe it and drive out to the houses on our own. At the first (Katy's House on the Lake), we meet our presumed next door neighbor who turns out to be Russian! Yes, they had smell problems when he first moved in a year ago, but now you only smell it, say, once a month late at night. Oh GREAT. We prowl around some in the subdivision and realize that you can actually SEE the site from our street. It's very depressing. We wanted that house. The builder asked $360,000 but was willing to take $325,000. I'd offered $288,000. Knowing what that it's next to a garbage dump, now I wouldn't take it for $88,000.

Mon 18 Aug I work all day and then we drive (Wife drives) to the Toyota place. She prowls around and we find a silver Camry we like. We set our negotiating strategy and are excited, then realize: it's got a sold sticker on it. We find another one and go inside to talk with Gary about it. He tells us that it is a demo also, but that he has a brand new one just like it. What does he bring to us? The one we wanted in the first place and thought was sold. He says, "Well, yes, but it's been 'sold' for six days, so I pulled rank on the other salesman and it's yours if you want." We want. Wife starts negotiating. At the point where she wanted the last drop of his blood, I start doing emails on my new Blackberry and ignoring the whole thing. Finally she hits a price and a really good price (according to what I could find out online) and a better price than I would've gotten by a couple hundred dollars. We sit and sit and finally talk to the finance guy. He talks me into extended warranty: four extra years (seven total) and 75,000 for $650. He also talks me into Lo-Jack theft protection for $250. I just spent all the money that Wife saved. But, actually she agrees both items are a good idea. We can't do the insurance thing so we (Wife) drives home.

Tue 19 Aug TODAY I work all day, except for a hiatus about noon. Wife calls: "Movers are here with our air shipment, but I don't recognize anything in the boxes." I jump in the car and get home. No boxes. Wife says, "They had all our paperwork but the boxes, when we really looked at them, were all for someone else." So I'm back in the car and back to work.

I just heard that they've located our shipment and are bringing it to the house. Hopefully all is good. Check in with me tomorrow.

Toyota Prius - How Fun!

Because of my abject paranoia about crashing my Jag again before I can get it successfully sold this weekend, we rented a car from Enterprise today. A supremely delightful university student named Katie picked us up at our flat and took us to the Enterprise office in Bracknell -- the next town over from us. It should have taken us 15 minutes to get there, but took 25 because of the usual UK propensity for tearing up streets for utility repair or something and just leaving them that way --with no one actually working on the utilities at all. Katie knew a slick route around the trouble or we'd have sat an hour in the "queue".

The car she picked us up in was a Toyota Prius -- a hybrid. I'd heard about them, never seen one up close, and never ridden in one. It was really cool and now we're thinking that this may be the car for us in the US.

To start it you push a "Power" button next to where the key goes in and the dashboard lights up like a video game. Otherwise, it doesn't make a sound. The gear shift is a little knob on the dash that you basically move to D or R. There's a button above the knob labelled, funnily enough, "Park". It didn't take a real long time to figure out the controls.

Only problem is that the only indication that it's running is that the dashboard is alive. It doesn't make a sound. You step on the gas to go forward and unless you've run over a cat that was sleeping under the tire (and didn't hear you start to move either), there's not a sound. A cute little animated diagram shows you whether you're running on battery or petrol (gasoline to the colonists). It also shows whether you're recharging the battery. It shows miles per gallon, which for substantial parts of the journey back to our house was pegged at 99.9 mpg. Can that be right? I guess so because, as we were signing the paperwork for the car, the office manager told us that he drives one and averages 50 mpg.

The transmission is apparently seamless. Somehow there must be only one gear in there. You just smoothly accelerate and there's no automatic transmission 'jump' at all. Cool again.

It rides nicely. Wife says that it's bigger inside than our Jag. And it does feel roomy. I had to have her hug the hood, or bonnet if you're reading this in UK, of the Prius and then show her that the Jag was too big to hug before she believed that the Prius wasn't bigger. I'm pretty sure you can fit a couple sets of golf clubs in the back.

We checked out some Houston Toyota sites and it looks like the going asking price is between $25,000 and $30,000. Steep, but in the same gradient as Mini Cooper that was Wife's choice up until a few hours ago.

Toyota also makes a hybrid version of the Camry. I'm sort of a Camry bigot, so maybe Wife will get Prius (pronounced Pree' - us in the Toyota video) and I'll get a Camry and we'll just be green as heck. That'll shock the heck out of everyone that knows me.