shelleycat picked me up at work around 11 to go car shopping today.

Unfortunately one of the three local possibilities, Dark Grey 2007 Prius with 66k miles, initial asking price of $15k, had been sold a day or two ago.


First on the list however was the one in Long Beach. First because it was closest, and also because it was the one i was least interested in actually getting. A 2005 Black Prius with 55k miles, asking prices $15k. However it had also had two previous owners and been in a minor accident. At first the guy claimed he didn't know any details about the accident, but then quickly decided he could see some ripples in the paint near the front right wheel well that indicated that was where it had been hit. Neither shelleycat nor i could see what he was talking about. After we took it out for a test drive he then told us that they didn't negotiate prices at that dealership. We said okay, we might be back but we had some other cars we needed to look at first. He then told us to give him a call back after that, whether we found a car we liked or not, and he'd see if he could work something better out for us. "We don't negotiate, please call back later so we can negotiate"? =P

The next place we went to was the 2007 Black Prius, 50k miles, asking price $15k. When we got there the sticker said $16.5 k, but when we asked about the internet price we were told that yes, $15k was the right price, so not quite Bait and Switch i guess, just an attempt to get some more money out of those who didn't do their research? That car had been listed as a fleet vehicle on CarFax, and it was in fact rather dinged up inside. I was willing to live with that if it meant i could negotiate a better price (that and the fact that it had 50k miles put on it in just 2 years of driving.) One little problem though, someone else had gotten there just before us and was also looking at the car. In fact the primary person had been in to look at it over the weekend, and she'd come back with her parents to do a test drive and negotiate. According to CarFax they'd been trying to sell the car since mid-August, and we showed up right after someone else decided they wanted to buy it =P Well, they said they were interested in buying it, we didn't want to stick around long enough to see if the negotiations would break down or not. Hovering around would just have wasted our time and potentially driven up the price for whoever ended up getting it =P

We then considered going to Corona Motors located in Ontario (to look at a Blue 2005 Prius with 65k miles and $14.4k asking) or Auto Gallery in Corona (Black 2007 Prius with 32k miles and $16k asking price) (and yes those names/locations are confusing =) but it was 3 or 3:30 by that point, and we were at serious risk of hitting traffic at this point. (Also, shelleycat is still recovering from being sick and wasn't sure if she was up to driving quite that far.) So we're thinking that unless something else shows up on the listings, we'll go take a look at the Corona Motors (not in Corona) on thursday morning (they say they'll be open early on Thanksgiving) or i'll go to the one Auto Gallery (in Corona) on my own with a rental car on friday. (There's also a Black 2007 Prius with 51k miles from CarMax which has the one feature i really want, Auxilary Audio Input, but they're asking $17k for it =P As convenient as bundled Aux-In would be, i could always get a new stereo installed for $150-$300 to fix it.)

So in any case, since we weren't doing any more car shopping we decided to swing by the new apartment and sign the lease, so at least we got something productive accomplished today =P