When I left for China, rather than let my 5 yr Honda CRV old car rust in the driveway for a year, I sold it. That meant when I came home I was car-less. Unfortunately St Simons lacks the great public transportation that all of China has. No stuff-it buses and no B1’s here. I borrowed Paula’s 15 yr old, always running, Toyota but I needed my own car. I love HAVING a new car but I HATE going thru the process of doing the dickering for the car so I begged Neil G into doing the preliminary stuff for me. You would think that after a year in China where you bargain for almost EVERYTHING that I would have started to enjoy the pricing process. I did end up enjoying the bargaining in China - which was easy to do because the same item would probably be right next door. So you just walk out and try another place. BUT HERE it's different. For some psychological reason (which I haven't figured out) dickering with car salesmen is different. I always end up feeling really stupid or gullible. I gave Neil my criteria: reliability, comfort, price, and looks. With Neil's research and my criteria we had sort of narrowed it down to the Toyota RAV4 or another Honda CRV. We looked and drove both cars and I ended up with the car pictured above with not too much pain. The Toyota place hadn’t worked with Neil yet and they were going to do the predictable back and forth price negotiation which was their kiss of death for me, but the Honda place had already worked with Neil and he had gotten that coveted final price. That made the decision easy. Unfortunately Neil couldn’t shield me from the extra service coverage sales pitch and the accessory sales pitch. But I got out of there by 4 pm driving home my new car. I love it and I survived the purchasing process.
