Starting with Monday: Mr. Salesguy called and left a message on my cell phone. He is lucky that I even realized that he had called since I rarely look at the cell phone; the only reason I noticed was the Wonderful Spouse happened to call me while I was on the was to take care of some evening pet-sitting critters. Anyway, I listened to the message and he said that they could drop the price. I called the salesguy back and he was with another customer, but I did tell him that I wasn’t buying a vehicle to turn around and buy six hundred dollars in tires.
He said that he wasn’t going to loose my business over a couple of tires and I replied that at this point that was exactly what was happening.
So all this had happened after the post on Monday was written and posted.
Tuesday, Salesguy left a message on both my cell phone and the home phone. Once again the price had dropped a bit (equal to $2/month, but still lower) and they could get me the tires. He THINKS he can anyway – they will have to do a search for the truck in the color I want, with the manual transmission and the packages that we had talked about along with the tires (I’m guessing that they’ve already located the vehicle, otherwise we wouldn’t have already done all this negotiating). However, I have to put money down before they will have it delivered (fair enough).
But, there is one big problem, I haven’t yet driven the vehicle with a standard transmission (remember, my test drive was with an automatic) AND they don’t have any at all on the lot. I’m not buying a vehicle without knowing how it shifts (I hated the way the Mazda shifted – I banged my elbow on the seatback every time). I told him I didn’t care how he did it, just get me a vehicle to test drive.
The end result is that I will be test driving a slightly used vehicle Friday night. Then, if everything goes well, we’ll arrange for the new vehicle to be brought here
Sounds like you might get what you really want, Bogie. Great! Sales rooms/lots just don't seem to stock standard transmissions. Unlike you, when I was looking at the Lincoln, I took a chance by ordering the car without having driven the standard transmission. I had seen a customer's car (my mechanic showed me one that he was working on) and driven the automatic. A few weeks later (it was the end of the production year and I had to wait on them to start production for the next year), I was quite pleasantly surprised. This transmission is the smoothest of any standard transmission that I've driven (it is the full standard--not the shift up/shift down that is available on newer Lincoln LSs). Same goes for the braking system, although, that wasn't an issue. I've not driven such a smooth braking system!
Posted by: Cop Car | June 24, 2004 at 08:23 AM
The only reason I even want to make sure of the standard, is because of my experience with the Mazda; the gear shift was about 3" off the floor, not on a console(so I had to lean way over), and my elbow hit the back of the seat every time I shifted into 2nd and 4th. So, I decided I better make sure on this vehicle!
Posted by: bogie | June 25, 2004 at 05:17 AM