The Art of Negotiating

Rated PG for a few cuss words

I purchased a new car over Memorial Day weekend. I was a hardened, astute negotiator. I practically got that car for free. (wild exaggeration) Let me tell you how.

For many, many years I was a devoted Honda driver. My feelings about cars were that they should be cute or at least not-embarrassing, and that they should be fuel efficient. I've driven an old Accord, a Civic, a CR-V. Reliable as hell, all of them.

I am married to a man who loves German automobiles. I cannot emphasize his love enough. For the automobiles. When I married him, he was driving a 1980 Mercedes something something. It had 4 doors and was white. In fact, let me go way back here, because this is cute. On our first date (omg), I was quite curious to see what he was driving. I had known him for years, but I'd never really known what car he drove (partly because for several years he didn't really have a car because he was broke-ass broke. He'd say "starving artist," but anyway.). I thought he'd be driving a pick-up truck since he's a woodworker. Nope. An old Mercedes. This was kind of a head-scratcher. But then I found out that he used biodiesel in it, and just are you kidding me? That is beyond adorable. Anyway, I wasn't a fan of that car because it was incredibly uncomfortable and the passenger side door handle didn't work, which is the worst.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. We now have three oldish BMWs (one of which is an old, classic car), a 1957 Porsche, an enormous 1972 Chevy pickup (admittedly, not German) and zero Hondas.

[I am reminded of a mural I saw in a hostel in Rome back when I was backpacking through Europe in my twenties. It read: "Heaven is where the cops are British, the mechanics are German, the cooks are Spanish, the lovers are Italian, and it's all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the cooks are British, the cops are German, the mechanics are Spanish, the lovers are Swiss, and its all organized by the Italians." Yay stereotypes! Moving on!]

A couple Saturdays ago my car broke down. Needed a new starter. Got towed to the mechanic. This is not the first time this car has needed a new something or other. Herein lies the major problem with high-performance automobiles: they are very expensive to repair. This is not a secret. But I blame my husband for this entire predicament because somewhere in there it was his idea to buy my car; surely I did not use my own will or agency when choosing that model; nor can I be responsible for the extreme enjoyment I experienced while driving that car, especially the speed part, especially the speed part when merging onto the freeway and being faster than everybody else; nor do I feel at all to blame for the somewhat hasty decision to buy that unit in particular, what with its high miles and rather fuzzy ownership history. I showed up to this marriage as a driver of reliable Japanese cars and my husband did various things to my brain and the next thing I knew I was driving a German car and paying exorbitant $$ to get it repaired too many times.

It was, admittedly, easy to go from reliable car to high-performance car. It is, however, difficult to go from fast car to not-fast car. It is not difficult to say goodbye to expensive, falling-apart car. But does one say goodbye to falling-apart car and then say hello to new fast car? Or does one say hello to new reliable car? Sigh. One says hello to new reliable car.

Which brings me to this past Saturday at the Honda dealership. Talk about a shit way to spend your Saturday. Not to disparage Honda. All things considered, the experience of buying from the dealership was not bad. But that is just unavoidably an uncomfortable experience. There are no happy faces in a dealership showroom. There are the salespeople who pace around, often jangling something in their pockets, eyes darting about in a state of predation. Then there are the shoppers, who look tired and jumpy and dubious and broke. It's akin to being in the doctor's waiting room. You look around at other weary souls, wondering what they're bargaining for, everybody in various states of I've-had-enough.

I'm not going to detail the experience here for you today, dear reader. It's too excruciating to relive in my head. Important in our (my) success were several strategies.

1) We brought extra kids with us. This wasn't our plan, but we ended up with some extra kids (high quality kids) and it worked out great. Wes and the 3 kids were an added pressure for the sales guy, IMHO. They're all bouncing around, touching everything, adding an unpredictable element.

2) I test-drove a couple cars, chatted with the sales guy and Wes and the three bouncing kids, and then we rather abruptly left. He was really thrown off by that. I was dying as we walked out because I was so uncomfortable and was worried that we were hurting his feelings (? why ?).
     a) I was so uncomfortable that I had to pretend I was somebody else in order to persevere. I pretended I was a fictitious version of myself, one that easily waltzes in and out of high-pressure deals with confidence and nerves of steel. I mean, all I was doing was exiting a building, but it was still so painful.
              i) I do the same thing in airports. Man, I hate airports. I pretend I'm a spy or assassin, and that dealing with the throngs of humans and stresses of air travel are just inane, quotidian annoyances of my super badass profession. And that I'm probably working undercover so I have to keep my cool. Also, meds are sometimes involved.

3) I came back a few hours later by myself. We had already decided where we wanted the final cost to be for finance/monthly payment purposes. We had already decided what we wanted for the trade-in on the German lemon. We already knew which model we wanted, and which bells and whistles were unimportant to us. I wrote all that down on a 3x5 card and kept that in my purse.
       a) It wasn't exactly part of the high strategy that I go back by myself but Wes did not want to leave the enormous pork shoulder he was smoking. Also, I wanted to do it by myself. (As I've mentioned before, Wes does like to use his words. I wanted all the words to be my words. Words.)

4) I wore high wedge shoes. Super tall.

5) I used super simple language. "We want to pay x amount for the car." "We want x amount for the trade-in." Hurry up and say the simple sentence, get it out of your mouth, and then it's theirs to deal with. Sweating occurs. My sweating. I doubt he was sweating. He does this stupid shit every day. All. The. Time. This is gross for me, but not for him. I had to remind myself of this over and over. I'd say "he's just fine" in my mind. That was my mantra.  Otherwise, the awkward part of me that wants to slouch, and accommodate his feelings, and be apologetic for wanting something at all, and use too many words, and ask instead of tell, will crawl forward. NO SLOUCHING!

6) I brought a nerdy magazine and my nerdy reading glasses. This was my coup de grace. I took out the magazine and placed it on his desk so he could see that I have other things to pay attention to. I put on my nerdy, quasi-unneccesary reading glasses to look smart and serious.
        a) Sales guys talk to you at their desk in the showroom and then they scurry off to the manager's office to see if they can possibly save your soul by getting Oz behind the Green Curtain to agree to your request. Then they scurry back and say "great news!" to lower your defenses and then they tell you that Oz will only take one of your children, not two. Win/Win. I heard this "great news!" thing used over and over in the showroom. (Here is where you nod knowingly.)
       b) While sales guy is gone, I relax with my magazine. ("Archaeology" magazine on this particular day. I am a devoted subscriber.) This gives me something to take my mind off the sweating. And when he comes back, he finds me leaning back, engrossed in the excavation of a Bronze Age site in England, and he is in the position of interrupting me because I'm doing something else.

7) I excuse myself to call my husband. I've already explained that my husband couldn't be with us, but naturally I need to call him to confirm the financial details. I leave the magazine and glasses on the desk so sales guy can see what I'm reading, and he can think: "she's no dummy". Or, "what a nerd." Whatever.
      a) I talk to my husband for a long time on the phone. this is not necessarily on purpose. Again, Wes uses a lot words. Also, he's never bought a car from a manufacturer's dealership before. Also, he's not actually there to be in the muck, so he feels like he's not holding the controls, which leads him to want to talk a lot about the faults in this system in general, and to be disappointed that we are not getting this brand new car for, like, $2000. But I do think it is helpful that we talked on the phone for a long time. Or, at least that is what I'm telling myself because I know how to do these things because I'm a high-powered negotiator with nerves of steel.
   
8) Same as #5. I counter his offer with short sentences. I try not to fiddle with my glasses. I survive the entire negotiation with my dignity in tact. I'm exhausted and starving.

In the end, I think we came to a very reasonable deal. Feel free to use any of my well-honed, expert tactics. I mean, the house always wins, at least a little bit. That's the reality with any retail. The point is to reduce that win as much as you can.  They did not take my firstborn child (only child). I got a ripping good APR. We got waaaaay below invoice price. I was far more comfortable in my own skin than the first time I bought from a dealership in my mid-twenties. My credit score is better than my husband's (the best part of the day). They took the damn BMW.

I've never bought a brand new car before. It is surreal. I am not relaxed yet when driving it. It feels rather like hurrying around with someone else's newborn. Like, "oh what a beautiful miracle; but so fragile, no? Am I hurting it? What does that sound mean? Maybe someone else should take care of it?" I'll get used to it. Plus, it has a WARRANTY. So fancy.