Friday, September 9, 2016

The Car Shopping Experience

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The Malibu is my fourth vehicle purchase. My first vehicle I was 19, my mom and I made a spur of the moment stop in to a dealership and walked out after signing papers on a used car. At that point in time, I knew nothing about car buying.  I had no idea that the interest rate on used cars is so high - I could have purchased a brand new vehicle that was $8,000 more and had the same vehicle payment. It was a lesson learned.

My next vehicle was 4 years later. I was 23 and I knew I was ready to get rid of my 8 year old vehicle.  There wasn't really anything WRONG with it, but it wasn't good on gas and I was ready for a different colour - sea-foam green just wasn't me.

A photo posted by Ashley Picco (@talesofmommyhood) on

I was fairly certain I wanted a toyota, so my aunt made me an appointment at the dealer she always used, and I again walked out having signed the papers.  I LOVED my 2004 Toyota Corolla.  The sales guy was really nice, I test drove it, checked out the Camry's but knew that it was out of the budget.  The Corolla was a little more than I wanted to spend, but I knew it would be much better on gas, and I was just ready for something new.

This was back when 0% interest was pretty unheard of, but the interest rate for 5 years wasn't too bad. I got a small amount for my trade in and a week later picked it up.  It was the best car. We brought Mr. J home from the hospital in that car. I had zero issues with it in the 6 years I owned it. When I was pregnant with Mr. K we decided we wanted a little more space, and got the Jeep.

That car buying experience was probably the most strange I had out of all 4 purchases. I wrote about it before, so you can read it here.  I loved the Jeep at the beginning. Being up higher was great, and I never had to worry about driving in the winter.  After a couple of years though, we started having major issues and I really regretted trading in my Corolla.

This time when we were looking at vehicles, I REALLY wanted to go back to Toyota. However, the Corolla was a little smaller than I wanted, and the Camry was out of our price range.  Toyota also did not have 0% financing at the time we were looking. So, we went to the Chevy dealer that my hubby's family has dealt with for the last 30 years or so (might be longer than that even).

When we went in, the experience was great.  Just like my 2nd vehicle experience.  They spoke to me, asked me questions and pretty much ignored hubby (knowing that it was my vehicle being traded in and I would be the owner/driver of the new one).

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