Black Taco

Yesterday (9.28.07), I received my first new automobile! booyaaa! I got a 2008 Toyota Tacoma (www.toyota.com/tacoma). It is a crew cab, off road package, in black. OMG, this thing is gorgeous! I don't know if it is sensible to say "I love it", but I do.

So, I spent most of Friday night studying at the UNM computer lab. I was dead tired when I left for home, but when I parked the truck in my garage....I stayed up for about 2 more hours waxing my black beauty.

This truck is a short bed, and it barely fits in my garage. Damn, that was close.

I bought this truck from American Toyota in Albuquerque, NM...and would highly recommend them if you plan on buying a Toyota/Scion. Ask for Jimmy Daniels and tell him Sean sent you. If you buy from him I get $100 :-) .

Now that I have my truck, I'm selling a 1987 Nissan Pickup. It should be on craigslist (http://albuquerque.craigslist.org/search/car?addTwo=by-owner) soon. Actually, it is there now, but I need to update the listing (http://albuquerque.craigslist.org/car/437636813.html).

New Auto (Part 4)

Yesterday I got all my financing done with the credit union at my work. I talked with the Toyota dealer and they will be ordering my truck and it should arrive on the first week of October.

I talked with my sales person and the finance manager about the "Dealer Holdback" fee I was being charged. I am very happy with the price I'm getting the truck for, but just the thought of the Holdback was making me feel a little uneasy. For those of you not sure about what Dealer Holdback is, it is an amount on the dealer's invoice that the car company (Toyota) holds back from the dealer, and when the dealer sells the vehicle, the car company gives it to the dealer. So why am I being charged this amount. The dealer is getting $512 from me and Toyota? It just seemed wrong, BUT, looking over the agreed apon price, I'm paying about 2.3% over invoice and what I believe to be 4.1% profit to the dealer. I'm good with this, no matter how they label the charges.

When I talked with the finance manager, he made an analogy that I thought was kinda funny but good: "It is like you have your hands full of cookies, and as you reach for one more, you crumble the cookies in your hand.".

Thinking of buying a new car, read this first (http://www.carbuyingtips.com/car1.htm). Chapter 3 talks about Holdback and Wholesale Reserve.

New Auto (Part 3)

All I could think about as I was in bed last night was what I was going to do next. Yes, I sold my Nissan Sentra before I receive the truck, but I got a good deal on it, plus I have the Nissan Hardbody (that truck never lets me down).

So I ride my motorcycle to the other Nissan dealer in our city (Meloy Nissan). They were closed and didn't have many Frontiers to choose from, let alone a NISMO. I then went to American Toyota to talk with Jimmy (sales person). Jimmy was the first sales person I talked when I started looking for a new vehicle. Not only was he very knowledgeable but very honest. I told him my situation with Nissan and asked what he thought about it and what I should possibly do to fix it. I asked him if I was legally held to the deal we had at the Nissan dealer. He told me that they did not sell me anything since they did not have the vehicle, basically, until I drive off with the truck, I did not buy anything.

I decided that I was done playing the games and put a down payment on a 2008 Tacoma Crew Cab with the offroad package in black. The cost is going to be a about $2,900 more than what I was going to get with the Nissan, but somethings are more important.

I received a call from the Nissan sales person, but I decided to not answer. He heard that there was some problems when I came in yesterday and wanted to talk about it.

Now what?. I will give Nissan 2 more days to fix this mess. If that does not happen then I will be another Tacoma owner.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the advice from the frontierclub forum (http://www.clubfrontier.org/forums). The advice from gwells was especially good.

New Auto (Part 2)

Ok, so I got a call from Doyle, who seems to be the one in charge of all final decision. Doyle asked if I would come in and look at the newly arrived NISMO, to see if it would be possible that I would want this truck instead of the one they found for me in Arizona. I decided that it couldn't hurt, but I was pretty sure that I wanted the truck in blue and not red, but I'll look.

I arrive and see the truck in the back with the protective material they have on vehicles when they transport them on the truck. I get someone to open the vehicle for me so I can get a better look. This vehicle has the following options:
NISMO/LE Rockford Fosgate Package
NISMO/LE Traction Package (4x4 Only)
Sunroof Package Accessories
Carpeted Floor Mats
iPod Interface

Out of all these options, I was wanting the sunroof and floor mats. What is not on this vehicle that I wanted was the bed extender. But, because of the audio and traction packages, this vehicle costs about $1000 more then the truck I ordered.

OK, now for the fucked up part. When negotiating my truck, I told them that I wanted the sunroof but without the cargo bars on top of the roof (the package includes both). They told me that when they get the vehicle, they will send it to another place to have the sunroof put in. No problem. I then asked if the factory installed sunroof was electric. They told me it was a manual pop-up style. So I told them I would be ok with that since that is what factory came with. The truck they just got in that I looked over had a sunroof, oh and guess what, it was electric!!! No appology was made to me for this mistake. I talked with Juan about this. I asked him, "If I order a 2007 Frontier with the sunroof option, is it electric?". He answered, "I'm not sure". I asked the same question again to him and he then answered, "It depends". I said it depends on nothing, it is a deterministic question which has a single answer. He then replied, "I'm not working that deal with you any more". What the fuck is going on here.

It turns out that the truck they found for me in Arizona got sold after they agreed to swap vehicles. The dealer in Arizona told Reliable Nissan they would trade vehicles and then turned around and sold it. So, I'm without the vehicle I was promissed. How do these businesses say one thing and do another. Is this how Nissan does business?

I already sold one of my cars, expecting to have a new vehicle soon. Thank God I held off selling my last vehicle.

Seems like I'm going lawyer shopping now. I hope this gets resolved. I was told that there were no blue NISMO frontiers anywhere. I then acquired about where they looked. They replied that there are only a few places they deal with (so not all locations in the US were searched). I believe that they are only checking stock with "near-by" locations to avoid expensive transport fees.

I hope they do everything possible to fix their mess.

New Auto

For the past few weeks I have been in the market for a new vehicle. I have been strongly looking at the 2008 Toyota Tacoma. It is the best selling mid size truck, highest ratings for safety, and just an overall awsome looking truck.

My first visit to a Toyota dealer was with American Toyota, near my work. The guy I talked with, Jimmy Daniels, was incredibly knowledgeable about the truck and just anything car related. He told me they could sell me the Tacoma for $650 over invoice. The configuration I wanted was the crew cab (4 door) with the off road package (note: the tow, floor mats, 6 disc changer options are mandatory???). The cost came to about $29,900.

I then went to Karl Malone Toyota and was immediately met by a sells person, even before I got out the car (actually there was one in-front of my car and I could see another in my rear view mirror, OMG). I mentioned that I was in no means planning on buying that day and was just shopping around. My sales person was so incredibly pushy and insistent that I buy the truck today. Needless to say, I will not be going back there.

After doing some searching on the net, I was reading a comparison on the Tacoma and the Frontier. I own 2 Nissans (1997 Sentra and 1987 Hardbody) and know how good Nissan makes their vehicles. The Nissan actually was preferred by the testers over the Tacoma, but only slightly. I go to review sites and see that the Frontier is getting great reviews and comments on resale value. I go the Nissan USA site (http://www.nissanusa.com/) and "build my own Frontier". As I'm doing this, I notice that this truck comes with a more powerfull engine. 4 wheel vented disc brakes (Tacoma has discs front and drums back). More items standard (eg. fog lights, chrome bumber, 16" alloy wheels etc)...and Nissan was not mandating their options! Also, $2000 money back on the Frontier, but this encentive is for 2 more days!

I head down to my nearest Nissan dealer, Reliable Nissan. First encounter was with Juan, nice guy with much experience. He pawns me off to a new sales person, Mark. Mark was not as knowlegable on this truck as Juan, but he works hard to make sure my questions were answered and I was happy with my experience. I test drove a NISMO 4X4. It felt good on Paseo del Norte. I tried some tight turning (seemed reasonable). I tried some hard exceleration at around 50mph, not great but not bad.

We start negotiations.....if you have ever watched tv shows where people get way too emotional over pricing...it is spot on. I can hear people yelling over pricing and options and whatever they feel like making a pointless point about. I was hard set on my price based on Edmunds.com True Market Value (TMV) of this truck with these options (http://www.edmunds.com/new/2007/nissan/frontier/100813282/optionsresults.html?action=2). TMV is a price for what people are actually paying for the given selections. NOTE: this does not include tax, title and license (my first mistake). So I'm arguing that I want the truck for $27,000 OTD with the $2,000 Nissan incentive rebate. Note, if we use the Edmunds TMV of $27,881 and add 5% tax = 29,275.05 then add $87 for ttl = $29,362.05 the include the $2,000 Nissan incentive, the final cost comes to about $27,362.05.

I walked out of the dealer because my offer was not being met. Next day, I was walking on campus (UNM) and got a call from Mark from Reliable. Mark reminded me that the TMV did not include TTL, .....hmmm.....let me re-think this. I'm getting a pretty good deal if I can beat TMV. It may not be a great deal but a good one and that is good enough for me.

BTW, here is a link to the exact truck configuration/options I bought (http://build.nissanusa.com/configurator/en?service=external/Summary&mo=2007:fr&bs=frc&tr=_TE_C-OR-6&ec=BW9&ic=_ZC&us=12193855649&se=12193438485556468739&pv=111233738440414243550515455575866364656877389&pc=1219385564&psel=121934384855646873&ps=X941&zipcode=87113)

I come in on the last day of the Nissan rebate incentive. I finish all the necessary paper work. Now we had issues on financing rates. I won't get into that part, but I was very tried at this point. I agreed on a slightly higher rate then I was told. Warning, get ready for them to try to sell you the paint protector, Gap insurance and death insurance. They really push this. It may be good for someone, who?, I don't know or care, but not for me...I know I'm going to have full coverage with my insurance company which I actually trust to do me right, so I declined. After declining, we spent another 10 minutes talking about why he felt it is needed and me talking about how I don't believe that "EVERYTHING" needs to be totally insured. I'm a gambling man, but come on! Last stage, they do a survey on how satisfied you are with the overall service and process. This was kinda funny, cause no matter what I said, they would reply with "so you are Very Satisfied then?". Just thought it was a bit of a gimmic.

Yesterday, I sold my 1997 Nissan Sentra for $2,400. I placed it on albuqurque.craigslist.org Wed night and had it sold 2 days later for $1,400 over what everyone else wanted to give me for a trade in.

First advice when buying a new vehicle, have thick skin and lots of patience. Second, know exactly what you are willing to pay, but make sure this is based on facts not just a number you came up with. Third, check review/comparisson sites, you may find another vehicle that meets your needs but at a much better value. Last, don't settle on "fuck me" trade in prices. Give the web a try, if it doesn't work out then you can always sell it to CarMax for that "fuck me" price.

I just got a call from Mark as I'm writting this. They have a red NISMO on site, just off the truck. They wanted to know if I wanted to check it out and possible take this instead of the Majestic Blue truck. I like the fact that they keep me informed of things like this and give me options. I would recommend Nissan to anyone and if you are in the area of Coors and Paseo, then give Reliable a look. Tell Mark, "Sean sent me", no discounts for doing so, but it might make a good impression on them.