Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Buying the Baby Bus -- An Epic Tale Part 5. The Final Chapter

And now, the final chapter!

Dave and Elizabeth, ecstatic at the prospect of buying their dream vehicle

Step 5: Every Dog Has His Day

Back to the web. And back to the bank. This time we wanted to get approved for an already converted vehicle before we did anything else. We had already looked at a couple vehicles that looked pretty good down in New Braunfels, TX so we used those as examples of what we wanted. I marched in there armed to my financial teeth with all sorts of tax returns and legal documents. We even had lour baby's ultrasound with us in case they wanted to check her out too.
“Approved!" said the banker.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.” said the banker.
“Are you really, really sure.” I asked.
“Sir?” said the banker
“Never mind.” I said

Now we were really ready.

Flashback to two months earlier. We had headed down to New Braunfels, about 45 miles south of Austin, to check out some class B RV’s. We test-drove a couple but only one was looking good. We hadn’t made an offer but the asking price seemed within our range and the vehicle was nice and clean with only 30,000 miles on it. So now, back to the present, we decided to give the van another look. Since we had looked at it we had found it was fairly priced compared to similar vans we had seen on the internet (with the exception of that great van in Vegas. That one was perfect) and it was right in our back yard. No flights, no interstate legalities, no scams. We were steeled for the deal. We decided how much we wanted to spend and, by God, we weren’t going to go over that. We were in the catbird’s seat. We had the funding. There were other vehicles we could get for the same amount. No one was going to push us around.

And when we got to the dealership there was another couple looking at the van!! And they went into the office to make an offer!! No!!!!! We paced around nervously for a while and waited for the other couple to leave. We heard the salesman say “You think it over and let me know” and then he shook their hands. The door was open.

When the salesman came back we started to talk turkey.

“Did you want to test drive it?” he asked
“No. Already did that,” we said firmly
“Did you want to see this other one?” he asked.
“No.” We said even more firmly. “We want this one for this much (we really should have written the figure down on a piece of paper and slid it over to him. Maybe next time).

He disappeared into his office. The figure we had offered was substancially less than they were asking. A little extreme but we’re talking the catbird seat. He came back with his offer. $1,500 more than we asked. My heart was beating. A small smile curled my lips.

“We’ll have to talk it over,” Elizabeth said.
NOT!

We took it and were overjoyed with the deal.

Apparently the salesman’s father was not so overjoyed. We had apparently arrived at the dealer when the responsible parties were not present because the deal we made was far lower than any that had ever been offered for that van. Finally! A break. So we sent down the used car inspectors. We did our walk around and signed the papers. We now have a big ol’ baby bus sitting in front of our house.

I just have to trim the branches just to get the darned thing into the driveway.

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

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