Not a bad deal..

If you are a regular reader or you have caught up and read back on posts, you know that we just recently bought our first home. We have been getting offers for refinancing our car as well. We decided to go and look to see what is out there and what they could do for us as far as paying off our current car and all.

We previously bought from a local Chevrolet dealership in Wyoming, MI. The guy that worked there who sold us our Impala works at a Saturn dealership in Holland now. He sent us a letter not too long ago to offer to see what he could do for us. Keep in mind, it has only been 2 years since we bought the Impala.. not very long at all. We did in fact go out to the Saturn dealership but we made it there on an evening when they happened to be closing at 6pm, so we decided we would go back another day. In the meantime, some things happened as far as personal and family issues, so we really didn't talk too much more about the car for about a week.

This week, we decided we would head over to the Chevrolet dealership on 28th Street here in GR, Berger. Again, we really had no intention of buying a car.. we were just exploring options. We got there and met a fabulous salesman. He was patient with us, and we actually test drove 3 different things.. a Chevy Uplander (a van), a Buick something SUV with 3rd row seating, and a Chevy Trailblazer. We loved the Uplander instantly. It was the van that we wanted and the space we have been missing since we downgraded to a car a couple years ago. We obviously don't have kids of our own yet, but we are always doing something with family and friends.. most of them DO have children. Not having to take 2 cars everywhere was our main motivation.

We were about to head into the dealership when I saw this awesome.. AWESOME.. Trailblazer. It was huge but gorgeous and has 7 passenger seating. We test drove it and loved it even more. It is loaded with a CD changer, DVD player, power everything.. you name it, it has the option. It was considerably more than the Uplander, but we were expecting to take on a higher payment if we were going to go with something bigger anyway.

We went into the haggling process for the Trailblazer. We weren't even sure at that point what they were going to give us in trade for the Impala. Like I mentioned, we still owed a lot on it.. so we were wary about hearing what they were going to offer. At first, he tried to get us to agree to a payment of $544 a month. I was speechless. That would have been almost doubling our payment. WOW. Yeah, no. He was also asking for a $2,000 down payment. We were about ready to just leave right then. We were calm though and just said that none of that was going to be possible. We talked him down some more and also got quite a bit taken off the price of the vehicle. They are taking crazy low prices on SUVs.. with gas prices the way they are, people are not buying them. It's not as much of an issue for us.. the Impala got about 28-30 MPG and this gets 23-25 MPG. That would be a huge difference for somebody who commutes a lot.. but I have no commute at all, and John uses our other truck to go to work. We also got the Impala paid off with only a small portion needed to be tacked onto the new loan. The interest rate wasn't bad either. A funny coincidence.. the finance specialist at Berger used to work at Courtesy Dodge and helped us get our van about 8 years ago. We had no idea it was him until we saw him. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be where we are now with our credit. When we bought again, we had gone back to look for him, but he didn't work at Courtesy anymore. Now we know why.. he was over at Berger. Ha.

We are now the proud new owners of an awesome 2005 Chevrolet Trailblazer. We just love it.. I think I mentioned that already.

This had to be the EASIEST car purchase ever. I think maybe because we didn't NEED a car.. we were more relaxed and had an easier time of things. We got to the dealership at about noon, ran some errands in the afternoon, and came back to sign everything at about 5pm. By 6pm, we were on the road with our new vehicle. Very quick and painless. Honestly, I didn't think we would get the deal we did or the financing. I mean, we just financed the house.. so our debt to income ratio is high.

The night we got it, it started making some horrible metal on concrete noise under the passenger side of the front end. We took it back to the dealership.. of course, it wouldn't make the noise while it was there and they had it. They had it all day, so we were driving a 2007 Grand Prix as a loaner for the day. Nice car.. small, but a nice car. It did have over 55,000 miles on it.. for a 2007? Someone must have been crisscrossing the country with that thing. We have the Trailblazer back now, and it's been perfect with no noises at all. It was documented though, so if we have a problem at some point, they will be taking care of it.

That is the end of the new car saga. I will get some pictures to post soon while it is still shiny and new!