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#1
Hello to all my fellow TAI’ns
So this is my first car that I have purchased since I joined this forum.
The Reason for buying the car:
This is my third car since I came to US. So that means 3rd car in 5 years. I recently sold my 07 Hyundai Sonata (known as Sonata Transform in India). It was a great car but I had almost 100K miles on it but I was getting a good deal for it, in which I was able to pay off my loan and still had $1500 left. And at that time I was working in Minneapolis, MN and I really didn’t need the car as the transportation system was really good. But I got a better opportunity and I moved on and the place I am going does not have that good transportation system. Therefore I had to buy a car again.
Car choices:
Since I will be coming to India within the next 6 months, I didn’t want to go for a new car and wanted to buy a car which has a good resale value, is low on maintenance, drives good, should have nice interiors, good mileage. And my budget was around $8K - $10K So the cars that I took into consideration were:
Honda Civic
Toyota Corolla
Nissan Sentra
Chevrolet Cruze
Nissan Altima
The Hunt Begins:
So once I had my list ready for the cars that I had to look, I started looking online at yahoo autos, cars.com and carmax. Found 2 sentra, 2 civic and 3 corolla’s. So I took all the information like the dealer address, no and the car stock no. And decided to go to the dealer next day.
Day 1
I woke up early took a quick shower and left for the dealership. This dealership had 3 cars which I saw last night. 1 Civic and 2 Sentra. First I drove the 2006 Civic Lx model with 107000 miles on it. The engine was quite, liked the pick up, pretty much felt like a new car even after so many miles on it.
Big windshield, so the visibility is nice. Driver’s seat is well positioned. Feels like spacious from inside and the seating position is quite comfortable. Also offers a nice ride and then i just love the digital speedometer. The rear seat was comfortable as well. Pretty good trunk space. And the mileage for the civic is almost 35-40 mpg on highways. So I told the SP that I am interested in the car and to let me know if they get some other customer and I left.
Sentra: The second and third car i TD was the 2006 Nissan Sentra. The pickup was bit lower than the civic as Sentra has 126hp compared to Civic's 140 hp. And somehow it didn't handle nearly as well as the Civic. The engine was bit noisy and didn’t like the interiors as well and I am looking something with nice interiors. But overall it's not bad, good substitute for a civic or corolla.
So by the time I tested these 3 cars I got a call and had to leave for some work.
Day 2
Again woke up early and reached another dealership which had 2 corollas. Both were 2006 model. One had 110K miles and the other one had almost 100K on it. But both them had some kind of noise in the engine. Both the cars drove good though but one of them had some problem with the suspension and the other one had quite a few scratches and a dent on the driver side door. Also I didn’t like the interiors and the seating position, felt bit cramped. So the Corolla went out of my list right away.
So after taking the TD I Went to another dealership and TD a 2005 Altima with $85K miles on the ODO. Took the TD and was happy with the car but unfortunately the car had an accident history, so out of the list right away.
So as soon as I got out of the dealership I got a call from the dealer who had the Civic, saying that he has another customer for the civic and what do I want to do. I told him to hold the car till next morning and I will get back to him. So after that I went home and checked the used car prices on KBB (Kelly Blue Book) and also checked other civics with the same model, year and mileage. And I found out that the dealer had the lowest price.
Finally the Purchase
So the next day I went to the dealer and asked him for another TD. And I took the car to a service shop and got it checked. Everything was fine except the alignment. So I went back to the dealer and told him that I was interested and will get the car but only if he works on the price. So the asking price was $9500 and after bargaining for 1 hour we settled at $8500 and the suggested retail for that model with 110K miles is about $11K.
So once the price thing was done I told the dealer to get the alignment done and he said that he will do it. They also changed the oil and filled up all the fluids, checked the air pressure. But getting the finance thing took almost 3-4 hours. So finally around 6 PM I got the car and left for home.
They Still have to do the detailing which they couldn’t do at the time of delivery as it was raining. So I will be taking the car back to them tomorrow and they will take care of it.
So this is my first car that I have purchased since I joined this forum.
The Reason for buying the car:
This is my third car since I came to US. So that means 3rd car in 5 years. I recently sold my 07 Hyundai Sonata (known as Sonata Transform in India). It was a great car but I had almost 100K miles on it but I was getting a good deal for it, in which I was able to pay off my loan and still had $1500 left. And at that time I was working in Minneapolis, MN and I really didn’t need the car as the transportation system was really good. But I got a better opportunity and I moved on and the place I am going does not have that good transportation system. Therefore I had to buy a car again.
Car choices:
Since I will be coming to India within the next 6 months, I didn’t want to go for a new car and wanted to buy a car which has a good resale value, is low on maintenance, drives good, should have nice interiors, good mileage. And my budget was around $8K - $10K So the cars that I took into consideration were:
Honda Civic
Toyota Corolla
Nissan Sentra
Chevrolet Cruze
Nissan Altima
The Hunt Begins:
So once I had my list ready for the cars that I had to look, I started looking online at yahoo autos, cars.com and carmax. Found 2 sentra, 2 civic and 3 corolla’s. So I took all the information like the dealer address, no and the car stock no. And decided to go to the dealer next day.
Day 1
I woke up early took a quick shower and left for the dealership. This dealership had 3 cars which I saw last night. 1 Civic and 2 Sentra. First I drove the 2006 Civic Lx model with 107000 miles on it. The engine was quite, liked the pick up, pretty much felt like a new car even after so many miles on it.
Big windshield, so the visibility is nice. Driver’s seat is well positioned. Feels like spacious from inside and the seating position is quite comfortable. Also offers a nice ride and then i just love the digital speedometer. The rear seat was comfortable as well. Pretty good trunk space. And the mileage for the civic is almost 35-40 mpg on highways. So I told the SP that I am interested in the car and to let me know if they get some other customer and I left.
Sentra: The second and third car i TD was the 2006 Nissan Sentra. The pickup was bit lower than the civic as Sentra has 126hp compared to Civic's 140 hp. And somehow it didn't handle nearly as well as the Civic. The engine was bit noisy and didn’t like the interiors as well and I am looking something with nice interiors. But overall it's not bad, good substitute for a civic or corolla.
So by the time I tested these 3 cars I got a call and had to leave for some work.
Day 2
Again woke up early and reached another dealership which had 2 corollas. Both were 2006 model. One had 110K miles and the other one had almost 100K on it. But both them had some kind of noise in the engine. Both the cars drove good though but one of them had some problem with the suspension and the other one had quite a few scratches and a dent on the driver side door. Also I didn’t like the interiors and the seating position, felt bit cramped. So the Corolla went out of my list right away.
So after taking the TD I Went to another dealership and TD a 2005 Altima with $85K miles on the ODO. Took the TD and was happy with the car but unfortunately the car had an accident history, so out of the list right away.
So as soon as I got out of the dealership I got a call from the dealer who had the Civic, saying that he has another customer for the civic and what do I want to do. I told him to hold the car till next morning and I will get back to him. So after that I went home and checked the used car prices on KBB (Kelly Blue Book) and also checked other civics with the same model, year and mileage. And I found out that the dealer had the lowest price.
Finally the Purchase
So the next day I went to the dealer and asked him for another TD. And I took the car to a service shop and got it checked. Everything was fine except the alignment. So I went back to the dealer and told him that I was interested and will get the car but only if he works on the price. So the asking price was $9500 and after bargaining for 1 hour we settled at $8500 and the suggested retail for that model with 110K miles is about $11K.
So once the price thing was done I told the dealer to get the alignment done and he said that he will do it. They also changed the oil and filled up all the fluids, checked the air pressure. But getting the finance thing took almost 3-4 hours. So finally around 6 PM I got the car and left for home.
They Still have to do the detailing which they couldn’t do at the time of delivery as it was raining. So I will be taking the car back to them tomorrow and they will take care of it.
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. That's one of the reason why i couldn't upload pictures.Will upload the pics and travelogue pretty soon.
