Lol, Purists would say I still don’t understand with my new car!

Click here to see my new car at the dealership (!!!) (scroll down on that link for the specs.) It was a lot less painful than expected I have to admit, it’s so much nicer when you can browse online & choose the car you want before you go. They only had one Jeep Compass so I didn’t have to make much of a choice about it. After reading the specs. on the Jeep Liberty, Hyundai Santa Fe & Tucson- this one had the best gas mileage. Combined with the high-rollover tendency in the Liberty’s, (I live in mountains & the curves can be literal killers) This was the car I really wanted.

And I got it! We walked in, they sat us in the guy who is in charge of the Internet sales’ office & then he came in, looked over my paperwork. I’ve lost my title to my PT Cruiser- it wasn’t in the file folder with all the other paperwork from my cars through the years- though I could swear I remember putting it in there!- cost me $5. at the DMV later in the day to get a new one so I could sign it over to the dealership!

He then gave me the keys to the Jeep, wrote up a temporary registration for 2 hours & explained that he had another couple of people there he was working with & would rather we went for a long drive & came back at the end of the 2 hours! It was 11:30 by then & 11 & 8 were hungry so we drove around, went to the bank, sat in the bank parking lot & I checked out some of the salient points of the owners manual & features of the car.

It has a back light in the trunk which has a flashlight attachment that you can pull out & use outside of the car- & features in the dash which tell you what sort of MPG your car is getting while you drive certain ways, speeds etc. a read out for the psi on your tires & a readout for how many miles you can drive on the gas left in your tank, the trunk area is a plastic piece which lifts out for spare tire access rather than carpeted space- which I will prefer, since I haul my own trash to the dumpsters here in Floyd Co. it got to smell after awhile, I’ve used so many bottles of febreze in my last car that it’s not even funny.

We had lunch at McDonalds, I made a few phone calls to resolve a couple of bills (including my satellite tv bill- which is to the company I work for- this counts later on) & we took a drive down the highway & back on a circuitous mountain road so I could check out how it would handle in my day to day driving. Then back to the dealership where they were not quite ready to see us- 11 & 8 played charades & ran around the (thankfully unoccupied) waiting room- which I think got the sales guy moving a little more quickly, I signed a bunch of paperwork (most of which was pre-printed from the information I’d filled out online already- very convenient) & we went to the business office across the street (this place is huge, multiple new car sales concerns & then tons of used cars plus their own garage, quick lube, RV & truck sales)

At the business office we waited in the car while the sales man went in & talked to the guy who did the discussing of the money & the interest rate etc, then waited in the waiting area (with a giant screen tv which the receptionist obligingly put on Disney channel for my kids- since we were the only people there.) Chrissea called which was nice, she told me what was going on in her life which kept me from worrying about the whole how-am-I-going-to-pay-for-this? thing. (a little)

The Old car.

Then I went in & heard what the damage was, I probably shouldn’t have agreed to it. But the interest rate is good & I can always trade it in a few years, as it stands though, I did go for the full coverage warranty, which is for 3 years or 36k miles, if anything goes wrong it’s covered, & the gap insurance where it will cover a replacement car if I totaled it- not just what the insurance covers but the whole thing- a good idea here in deer with a death wish country.

We waited awhile after that, they were detailing the car at the same time so we had to wait while they finished that. I called my insurance company to get the insurance switched over & we went back with the salesman to his office, cleaned out our old car & said goodbye to it. (mr 8 kissed it right above the gas cap- which I found particularly ironic as that’s one thing I won’t miss!)

We took care of the title stuff right away because I had to sign a paper that said if I didn’t produce it in 3 business days they’d bill me the money they gave me as trade in on the car- not much, let me tell you (I didn’t pay a cent of cash down this time, I couldn’t due to the lack of tax refund in my hands currently) & I really won’t complain too much because as I’ve mentioned before, the car had 145 thousand miles on it, a ruined back trunk hatch, a busted back bumper with broken tail light, a clunk in the front end which was either
a bad u-joint or a bad strut- I don’t want to know.

We arrived home & checked the mail, moved the cds & other things which we’d unloaded from the old car this morning, into the new car. (all but the tapes, this car’s stereo is cd only, no tape deck at all :^( yet another reason to get a new computer soon so I can burn my own mix cds & give up the tapes forever!) While we were doing this my phone rang, at first I wasn’t going to answer it because it said ‘unavailable’ but I thought 17’s friend’s house, being down the mountain might not have cell phone service for 17 to be able to call from her cell & that it might be her calling from the friend’s home phone so I answered.

It was my company, a quality assurance person was calling me back to discuss my customer service experience when I called to make my payment! I had talked shop with the woman who took my payment, asked specifically when my employee credit would be applied this month- (so as to make sure it would be before they shut me off- because of course, I only paid the part of the bill I had to pay minus the credit I receive)

My first words to this quality guy were ‘dude- don’t you check the records? I’m an employee!’ They can’t ask employees for feedback on this because we’re too sympathetic to the person on the phone (why couldn’t have they called me for feedback on the call I made to get a new remote back last summer, when they first told me I didn’t have warranty coverage & then after I set them straight & told them where to look in the computer program to prove I was indeed in warranty, sent me a set top box instead of the remote I needed!)

He explained that the ID #s on the account, because I didn’t sign up for it as an employee weren’t the sort they’re supposed to be to help the computer program filter employees out of their call back thing. He confirmed I have the employee credits on the account & I told him I thought the woman who took my payment was wonderful (she waived the $5. transaction fee we charge to take a live credit card payment without my having to ask her to do so! So of course I thought she was great!)

After making dinner with leftover ham that 17 cooked last night & rice I’ve been on here ever since, I’ve offered to go get 17 at her friend’s house so as to get to drive the car again tonight & am currently waiting on her call!