Buying and selling a car the hard way, a case study
After 239,000 miles, our 2004 Sienna has seen better days. It’s list of ailments include:
- horrible squelling noise when starting the car or turning on the A/C (belt or belt tensioner problem?),
- noisy brakes…sometimes,
- warped axle sound when veering or turning left,
- intermitent zombie changing of radio station, and
- a tempermental automatic side sliding door.
All these cries for help were going unattended once it passed the 200,000 mile marker. In spite of the embarrassing noises emanating from this previously faithful mount, this machine was faited to soldier on without professional mechanical attention.
The vehicle threw one last cry for help in the form of a dead alternator. With the minivan unable to start without a jump, its time to be sent out to pasture had arrived. We were not investing in nursing our silver beast back to driveability.
Chapter 2: Toyota or not to Toyota?
Without reliable transportation, getting a replacement vehicle just got real. I wanted to go mostly electric (Chevy Volt), but was vetoed by the wife. The Sienna replacement was to be in the SUV category.
Despite the recent issues with the Sienna, that vehicle was mostly trouble-free over its 12 year service. The top contender was the Toyota Rav4. We also had luck with our pre-owned Prius, so our Toyota brand affinity is strong. The others on the short list were the Mazda equivalent and the Ford Escape.
Monday, August 10th
Visiting the dealers
We visited the pre-owned Toyota lot in San Jose where we purchase our 2010 Prius. The dealership had a few Rav4’s on the lot, running a little over $20K for pre-owned vehicles with 20K — 40K miles. We took a test drive, and were satisfied with the price and vehicle.
We had enough time to head over to Oak Tree Mazda just a few blocks down the road to see what their Rav4 equivalent offered. When we there, we were greeted by Alex. Despite speaking with a thick Russian accent and a super-fast cadence, we liked Alex. He is clearly a car enthusiast and very knowledgable on the Mazda lineup.
We again were thinking pre-owned for the CX-5, but the 2017 model in Deep Crystal Blue with Touring package and leatherette seating, with the Premium package, caught our eye. This model was going for $27.6K.
We test drove the 2017 CX-5 and liked the value of the vehicle.
The Touring with Premium package comes with:
- sun-roof,
- blind spot detection,
- leatherette seats, and
- Bose sound system.
Buying Tip 1:
The Mazda Touring (which is step up from the Sport, and a step down from the Grand Touring package) is designed to be sold with the Premium option. The Premium gives you the sun-roof, Bose sound system and other goodies for around $800. Essentially, the price difference between the Sport and the Touring has this Premium package already baked into it.
We took a trip over to Ford, and were unpleasantly surprised at the cost premium of the Escape. That trip lasted all of 5 minutes before we 86'd Ford from the contenders. When did American vehicles command a premium over its Japanese counterparts?
TrueCar works
Upon returning from the dealerships, I did some Googling. I played around with a couple of price comparison sites, and decided to register an account with TrueCar.
I was a little sketched out since they had a lot of “required” fields including mobile number and email information. I don’t mind email spam, but text and phone intrusions didn’t sound awesome.
After creating an account, I clicked a few request for quotes from local Mazda dealers for the Deep Crystal Blue 2017 CX-5 with Touring package.
The first quote came back within minutes, with a few coming the following day.
Making progress, all systems go
After day 1 of serious car shopping, we were closing in on a purchase. We were strongly leaning torwards a Deep Crystal Blue 2017 Mazda CX-5 with the Touring and Premium package.
We now needed to get our financing completed. This process was sure to be a mere formality on our way to our new purchase.
