We bought a new car.

It was very stressful.

I kind of knew but found out firsthand that my husband would rather have a knee operation than buy a new car.  He absolutely hates shopping period even for a new car.  It's a very painful experience for him and you could see this clearly as it was written all over his face.  He doesn't like to bargain and he's not good at it.  But it was time, and after dragging his feet he agreed reluctantly to go look. 

My trusty old 2001 Subaru hadn't been doing well for months now.  It would sputter and occasionally stall when I sat during a red light.  I would have to keep one foot on the brake with the other on the gas to keep it going. It didn't do it all the time.  It seemed worse as the weather or the car warmed up and with the hot summer weather looming ahead we knew we had to do something. 

We took it to the Subaru dealership last fall and they couldn't figure it out.  Everything seemed fine.  They played with it and tweaked it here and there and seemed to help a tad but not entirely. 

So in January we went to a car dealership just to scout out new cars.  We warned the salesman that we were not game players. We were just looking.  We only wanted the bottom line and we'd be on our way.

Of course, they didn't listen and set about to play their little games. They went around and around with no clear amount on the table.   So we walked.  We got calls for weeks after that begging us to come back and they would make sure we got an honest price.  We never did go back and I stopped taking the calls. 

So yesterday the car was running very rough and after months of research via the internet, newspapers, and reports we decided to go check out three dealerships.  We set our sights on the Hyundai, Toyota and KIA places of business. 

We wanted a car with good gas mileage.  Bells and whistles are not important to us outside of the basic air conditioning, CD player and power doors and windows.  Other than that, we didn't need to spend the extra money.

My husband wanted to check out the Hyundai Accent which I immediately discarded when I saw it.  It kind of reminded me of the Honda Fit. Small.  He was looking at gas mileage and price.  I was looking for something with a bit more room but not sacrificing the mileage too much.   We are expecting that the gas prices are most likely to sky rocket once again as soon as this recession is over.  So we're preparing for this. 

So we went to the Hyandai place first thinking we'd do a quick swipe at all three dealerships since they were on the same strip.  Wrong.  We never made it out of there the same way we went in.  That's what they want isn't it? 

After looking at and soundly rejecting the Accent, we looked at the Elantra which we knew had a very good rating.  Much more to my liking with more room and just a tad lower in gas mileage although I really would have much rather kept the SUV thing going.  I'm trying to be practical even though my heart was thinking more along the lines of a CRV or any sporty type SUV hatchback.

We told the guy straight up about the no game playing rule and how we walked out of his sister dealership in January.  So he knew.  None of this running back and forth to the manager while they let us sit and stew it over.  Not going to happen.  Give us your best price and we'll be on our way. 

Of course didn't quite happen that way but the manager came out and sat with our salesman and we all talked together.  So far so good.  Gave us his best straight up answer which was a better price than in January by more than a thousand for the same model.  They knew we were on our way to the Toyota place after this so they did everything in their power to get us to sign before the night was out.  Wasn't going to happen.....but......

We did.

Of course we agonized a bit especially after they gave us a low number for our trade in.  I didn't like that number so I said to my husband...."let's go home and think about it."   Well that set off the "wrong answer buzzer" and they immediately gave us an extra $500 for the car.  We knew the blue book value and we also knew the problems the Subaru had including most likely needing a new wheel bearing. 

So I told them if they gave us three free oil changes it would seal the deal.  They agreed and we signed the paperwork.  We should have held out for roof racks. 

We cleaned out our beloved Subaru and traded keys.  Then we went home.  The whole process took over 3 hours and it was way past dinner time.  We stopped for burgers, tired and exhausted arriving home after 9 pm. 

That's when the real stress began.

We came home and under the light of the garage we found two scratches on our new shiny red car. 

We started to second guess ourselves.  Could we have held out for more?  Did we get a good deal?  Should we have gone home and thought about it first?   I missed my Subaru.  I missed the large sunroof and he missed the roof racks.  I missed my six CD changer and he missed the  extra hatchback room. 

He's thinking how he was able to strap up that new Queen mattress to the roof last week.  The week before that it was a piece of sheetrock and a screen door.  That's not going to happen with a Sedan with no roof racks.  He was also thinking about the new shelving we need to pick up next week after our trip.  He treated this car like a truck.

So now he's thinking maybe he should go back and cancel the deal, grab our car back and pay the extra thousand or two to get it running smoothly again.  Afterall it only has 105K miles on it.  Should be good for another five years.  Besides this new red car is going to show more dirt than our older silver one.  What did I think?

I was thinking about how it was almost nine years old and the silver paint was starting to do some funky things.  There was a big scrape on the front lower half where I scraped against a rock when I was coaching hurrying to get to practice.  I was thinking about how the all wheel drive cut short the mileage per gallon and how the new car would get better gas mileage. 

He was thinking about how the extra insurance with collision is going to cost us alot more.  I'm thinking..... well we don't have to get that extra insurance because we paid cash for the car.   

So he left for work the next morning in turmoil.  He took my extra set of keys just in case thinking he may just go and get our Subaru back since he was supposed to drop off the old title anyhow. 

I called Dad who had just bought his new Corolla a month ago and told him the whole deal about the night before.  He said he thought we did ok as we compared stories.  He's a shark when it comes to this sort of thing. He also told me how we could get one of the those new lightweight trailers to tow behind for our little construction projects.  They fold up nicely and can hang on the wall in the garage when done.  Cool!    Then I called the insurance agent to find out the extra cost for this car with collision insurance amounted to only an extra $120 per six months thanks to our great rating. 

The husband went to the dealership showed them the two scrapes and they said it was no problem.  They would buff these out and it will be good as new.   

So we decided to keep the shiny new red car with yellow Hyundai striping.   Maybe I'll get an ipod for it to make up for the six CD changer I had before. 

........ maybe our next car will be a convertible.