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A few weeks ago, I wrote about a car accident I had and the loss of a car that I had grown attached to. It was called
“Accidents Will Happen.” A couple of people had told me that they had a hard time getting the song by Elvis Costello out of their head after reading the article, so I thought I would mention it again just to continue that little torture. Sorry Steve, I couldn’t resist.
Seems how that article didn’t complete the story, I thought I would bring you along on the next leg of the journey, finding a new car. I was laboring under the misconception that I would have at least a month to find a new car and that the other driver’s insurance company, Farmers, would continue paying for my rental car until I did. So I was taking my time trying to find the same car that I had, but Farmers had other ideas.
Two weeks into our search, the ultimatum came down that we had to return the rental car by the next Friday. So the scramble began and everything else had to go on hold. What made it more difficult was the fact that Farmers was of course offering a low-ball amount for my totaled car making our search to find another one more difficult. Unfortunately for Farmers they had to deal with my secret weapon, my wife Stacey, who has been a legal assistant for the last 25 years. Who it just so happens now works for a law firm that specializes in insurance defense. So poor Morgan at Farmers had no idea what he was walking into when he made his low ball offer.
In addition to being very good at her job my wife is a lot like Superman in her search for truth and justice. She is also very into the American way but that really doesn’t apply here. She is a stickler for rules and doing what is right. As my son’s baseball coaches, Abe Sanderson and Dave Stransky, can attest to, if she sees something that she doesn’t feel is right, or is not going by the rules, she will not give up until the wrong is righted or the rule is adhered to. And if she doesn’t know the exact rule off the top of her head she will investigate it until she does. So in other words, Morgan didn’t stand a chance.
To the internet Stacey went and began doing price comparisons and checking on the availability of a 1998 Malibu LS. As she did, her conversations with Morgan escalated, as did the amount that he was offering. Every call resulting in him to pump it up. We started chasing down every lead on the elusive model only to find that the turnaround on this car was beyond belief. It got to the point where we started calling ahead to make sure that the car was still there before we left the house.
To be honest, I wish we had done that from the beginning just to cut down on the amount of games we had to play once approached on a major car dealer’s lot. These guys must go to some kind of car selling school because there is a patter they have that is the same everywhere we went. If one more of these poorly dressed, glad-handing yahoos had said “let me get my manager” after not being able to answer my questions, I was going to get in my car and back over him a couple of times. If you are unable to answer my questions don’t chase me down on the lot and waste my time. Just go get the real salesman and quit trying to sell me something I don’t want.
I began to feel like a man out of time, and that getting the model that I wanted was out of my reach, making me feel almost blue. We began opening ourselves up to different kinds of cars as the time clock was ticking away. We stumbled on a newly opened car dealer in San Gabriel, on our way back from Alhambra’s Auto Row, who had some great prices. While I have always been leery of independent car lots, I felt that given my time frame, if I followed the mantra of “watch your step” I would be OK.
They had a great deal on a ‘97 Volvo 960 and the car, given its years, was beautiful and for the first time I was swayed from what I wanted and I was seriously considering buying it. Then the question was raised by my dad about possible future repairs and if they could be done anywhere. The next day my wife and I questioned this with people we knew with encounters of the Volvo kind and discovered that these cars did require special care. This was not somewhere I wanted to go with this car. I know car repairs are expensive, but from every account we heard, we would probably have to sell one of the kids to afford it.
So the weekend came and with it the LA Times, Sunday’s best, and not finding what we were looking for we went back to the Internet and there it was. Stacey had found a match for what I really wanted, a replacement for my car. My emotions were pulling me two ways at this discovery. I was happy that it had everything I was looking for but it was at a major car dealership, Rusnak, which had me thinking in the back of my mind the words “let me get my manager.” But we were almost out of time and decided to go for it.
Much to our surprise, we were greeted and serviced by a lovely woman named Sue. She had a wonderful English accent that had me thinking if I had to give her a proper English name I would have chosen Veronica. She was very pleasant and knowledgeable and did her best to make our experience a pleasant one. It didn’t make any difference that we weren’t buying one of the locations high-end specialties, ironically Volvos. She, and sales manager Steve, treated us as though we were the biggest spenders on the lot. The only thing that mired down the process was the paper work, which considering we were going to be paying cash, could have been dispensed with. Overall the experience was great.
So this portion of the journey has come to a close. We pick up the car tomorrow and try to begin again and hopefully avoid the type of untrained drivers in this town that caused the problem to begin with.
Special Note: For all of you hard core Elvis Costello fans, here’s a little game for you. In this article there are 9 titles of his songs, see if you can find them. I’ll put in the answers next week. Good luck! (One clue: the article’s title is not one of them, it’s only the title of an album.)
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