car dealers

On top of everything else last weekend, we sold our Ford custom van. At a wonderful 14 mpg and the quick rise of gas prices, I just could not take it any more. It a momentary lapse of judgement I told me wife we should take the van to the Wal-Mart parking lot and leave it with a For Sale sign in the window. We sold the van within a couple of hours and so we were down to a single vehicle between us. Not a bad thing, unless you consider the fact that I have to drive to work which is 20 miles away in one direction every day of the week. Since it was late Sunday, we had a couple of choices and decided to try Enterprise Rental cars since they are just down the road a couple of miles. All week long my wife searched the internet for the best car for us. We did not consider a brand new car because of the high price and we do not want to have monthly payments for 5-6 years as that is no fun. Yesterday we checked all of the local small-time dealers in the huge metropolis of Fuquay Varina. One sells high end cars, one sells perfect cars for teenagers which you don't mind if they trash or crash them, one struck me as not very honest, one was from the county of Jordan. Quite a mixture for such a small town. We then ventured outside the town limits to a couple of new car dealers right outside town, as they sell what are called "program cars". These are cars that are owned and driven by dealerships and then sold as used cars. We ended up driving just about every reasonably priced SUV on the market for sale: Ford Escape, Jeep Liberty, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Honda CRV, Nissan Xterra, Mazda Tribute, Toyota Rav4, Hyundai Tucson, and Suzuki Reno. Like my wife said yesterday, there are just too many vehicles to choose from and that makes it even harder. We ventured to the Cary Auto Park in the evening, where there are just about every vehicle brand for sale in the USA can be found. The final place we visited illustrates what I think of dealerships. We drove around most of the dealers looking for the used cars on display in the lots. As we were leaving the final dealer, we saw a nice Mazda Tribute displayed nicely as it was parked on the sidewalk. We went back, which was our first mistake, and asked to drive it. At the big dealerships,someone rides with you from the dealership while you take a test drive. Since the price was too high as said we were not interested. The salesman went inside and said the owner would do something silly to get rid of it as it had been on the lot longer than any other vehicle. I told him I would buy it for $3000 under the price listed right then. He made me sign a paper saying that and ran off to talk to the owner. He came back and told me that was too low. So much for doing anything to sell it!