The story of "THE CAR"

I know A LooOOOOOng time ago I said I had to tell you about my most recent car buying experience. So here it is...

When the kids first came to live with us we had my Mustang and a handicap van. My Mustang was obviously not meant for kids and the van only had a back bench that seated three and the driver's seat. Of course this was a problem. Especially since we all had to be together all the time.

We added a jump seat (seat that folds up) to the middle and that made exactly 5 seats. This would have seemed to have solved the problem but nope, with the ramp and various equipment in the van, the extra weight was too much and things started to go down hill with the van. It would ride so low, we couldn't even drive up the driveway to our house without letting the kids out first because it would scrape the bottom. The power steering was already leaking at that point from having hit the bottom of the van.

I had bought a 12 passenger van and boy oh boy did that van get used. We packed it with Girl Scouts and went every where but the fact still remained Hubbin's couldn't go with us. The plan with the bigger van was to have it converted so Hubbin's could come along too but we found out that it would cost more than the van itself to get all the conversions it would need.  When CDQ first started going into day treatment it was costing me $80+ a week in gas just to transport her. I couldn't afford it.

Hubbins and I agreed we would buy a little commuter car that had better mileage in the meantime just to transport CDQ, so I bought a little green escort from one of the biggest dealers in our state. Except the escort had issues. I loved everything about it, the payments were great, the mileage and gas were perfect but the damn thing had a "mechanical problem"(Their words). They tried to fix it but gave up. It shook so hard it hurt my hands and actually gave the oldest, who sat in the front passenger seat, a headache. You could see our headlights bouncing up and down on the car in front of us. While trying to resolve all the problems with it, CDQ ended up in RTC.

I had test drove the car prior and it hadn't done that. The sales guy (who is also a pastor at a local church) said if there was anything wrong with it they wouldn't sell it to me and he also agreed with me that the car never shook like that when we test drove it. They had said they needed to replace the motor mounts and that would fix it all. The next time they said all the motor mounts hadn't been replaced like they were supposed to and the third time they said it was the "nature" of the car.

What happened next must be illegal but I'm not even sure where to start with it. I talked to the sales manager at the dealership and told him that service was telling me the car could not be fixed any further and sales was telling me that service didn't make those decisions. The manager told me that he didn't want me to feel like I was stuck with the car and that I could bring it in and if I wanted to I could see if they had something else for me.

So I did, I was so nervous about not having a car to transport CDQ. I didn't understand that she was going to be in RTC for awhile so I was anxious to get a new car. The car I was purchasing was $5000. I looked at a Focus and thought I was going to buy that when they called me and told me they had a car they wanted me to see. I literally already had the Focus in my driveway. I took the Focus back and they sent me home with another more expensive car.  I went ahead and agreed to purchase a $15,000 car just to have a car that was reliable and not crap. This whole fiasco had already gone nearly three months by then (Dec.- Jan./Feb.).

They told me that since the other car had already funded, they needed to take the escort in as a trade in now. I stupidly assumed that it was going to be full value. Instead, they took the full amount of the car including the interest if I had taken 4 years to pay it ($7,000) and charged me for it! I now was paying for both cars! $24000 to be exact.

I told them that wasn't right. I didn't want either car. They told me there was nothing they could do but give me the escort back. I told them to go ahead then. I was so angry. I felt cornered. They had already sold my van that I had traded in and wasn't upside down in.  Then they did the psychological crap on me. I knew they were doing it to me, but in the back of my mind I knew I needed something for when CDQ came home (at that point I thought she was only going to be gone for two weeks). They told me "you don't want your daughter getting headaches do you?".

I knew the car I was buying was worth $20,000 and I knew they had lowered the price some to $14,000. But I finally just agreed to go home.  I should've fought it, I still think I should hire a lawyer. At the time I couldn't afford one because of Christmas and Birthdays and back then I was still paying out of pocket for CDQ's pills.

I get angry every time I think about it, which is like every time I get in my car.

So that's the story of how I got screwed buying a car.  What we really need is a converted shuttle bus you know the kind that shuttle people around the airport and stuff? Yeah, one of those. The reason why I am telling you all this is if the inspection comes back good today we just might have one by next week!! :-) I'm trying not to get ahead of myself but I can't help but have visions of ENTIRE family outings to the
zoo, a vacation, hell, just even going to the store or out to dinner ALL TOGETHER AGAIN!

Counting the minutes until the inspector guy faxes his results...tick, tock, tick, tock.