BUZZURRO

Today Buzzurro and I started our search for a used car.
We want a nice car….nothing fancy…but nothing that is falling apart either.
We met all sorts of sleazy characters on our way and there will be more to come in the future since we haven’t found our nice car yet.

So far we’ve met:
1. The aggressive pushy salesman who wants you to sign on the dotted line for a new car within the instant or else the price increases 50 percent.
2. The beggar who calls 24/7 and asks you to buy a “special ” car. if you are dumb enough to give him your cellphone number (like I was).
3. People who don’t speak English. Now I have nothing against people who don’t speak English. In fact as a former English teacher I earmed a few pennies off of them, but I really don’t think that non-English speakers should become car salesmen in the United States where most people do speak English.

We’ve had some unusual experiences.
At the first dealer we went to the salesmen who rode in the backseat when we test drove the car was overweight.
That’s not a big deal in itself as I’ve seen larger, more overweight people getting into the backseat of smaller cars.
He was having problems breathing.
He was gasping and wheezing the whole time we went for our test drive.
All I could think of was “My CPR card is expired. What if he dies? ”
To make a long story short, he didn’t, but it was scary.
Too bad they don’t sell used cars with portable defbrillators in them.
Anyway, I was so busy thinking about the salesman’s health, or lack of it, I didn’t even concentrate on the car.
Lucky for me (and him) Buzzurro didn’t like the car and cut our test drive short.

At the next dealer we went to from afar we saw a beautiful white car.
We got closer.
There were scratches on the rear bumper, but other than that from the outside it looked perfect.
A salesman there gave us the keys for a test drive and then told us that with a photocopy of our driver license we could take the car for a test drive by ourselves.
We gave him the documents, he gave us the car keys and we hopped inside.
Inside we noticed the cracked upholstery of the car.
We also noticed that the air conditioner did not work.
We started the car and noticed that a whole bunch of other things on the car didn’t work either.
Miraculously we survived our test drive and returned to he lot in one piece, but we both swore that we would never buy the car, not even if the dealer sold it for one shiny penny.
After we brought the car back we told the salesman that the car has a lot of mechanical problems, the air conditioning not working being one of them.
“Oh yeah” he said “Only the fan works. HA HA HA. ”
Personally I fail to see the humor in trying to sell someone a car when you know something doesn’t work without telling them, but perhaps it is me.
Then he told us “I have a great car for you to see” and showed us a car with many holes and chipped paint on the front hood that really didn’t look any better then the other ugly broken down cars on his lot.
“Was this car in a shoot out?” I asked him while pointing to some of the damage.
“No” he replied.
“Those marks prove that this is a good car. All these holes and chips were caused by flying rocks on the highway. It’s a very good sign. It means the car was used in highway driving and since that’s better for the car then you can tell that the engine is sound.”
I didn’t answer but I have never, ever even of thought of chipped paint on the hood of a car as a good sign.
This guy was just talking a load of crap and it kept getting deeper so Buzzurro and I just left.

We went to another dealer and saw a fair car.
It was plain and nothing to write home about, but it looked acceptable for our needs.
On closer inspection I saw that the windshield was cracked from the passenger side all the way to the driver side.
I said to Buzzurro “Look at the windshield. It’s cracked and will need to be replaced.”
“Oh No.” said the salesman who overheard me.
He went on, “All the drivers in this town drive with a cracked windshield” whereupon Buzzurro said “I’ve been living here for 1 year and never had one, or even saw anyone else with one” and then the salesman went on to describe how on his wife’s car the windshield is cracked and has been like that for over one year.
What he and his wife do with a cracked windshield is between them of course, but he is wrong.
Even in this town cracked windshields ARE fixed and we didn’t want to buy a car with one..

After that Buzzurro and I decided to call it a day.
I went home only to receive a call from another dealer about his ‘Special Prices”, but when I asked what they were he just changed the subject.
Repeatedly.
He just wouldn’t answer my simple question of “What are the prices?”
AHHH.
What’s a girl to do in circumstances like these?
Yes, I made an appointment.
I’m going there tomorrow.
We just want a nice used car.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 8:16 pm and is filed under Daily Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.