On May 19th, 2007, I got up at 6am because I couldn't sleep. I began to go through websites after websites on car purchasing because I felt inadequate in this field. I came across CarCostCanada.com, a website that offered information of the dealership wholesale prices at an incentive. Within 2 minutes and 42 dollars later, my report was printed. I spent the rest of my early morning refining my understanding of lease terminology and procedures.
At 9:00AM I left to go to the dealership and stopped at my office to let Ken know that I was on my way. Ken refused to meet me in person; he claimed that he had no time for this meeting and that there was nobody higher than he was in the dealership to handle a situation like this. I just didn’t want to play phone tags hiding behind the false sense of security.
Eventually we compromised to speak on the phone. During the first 30 minutes of the conversation, Ken was insistent that it was already a done deal that nothing can be changed and he did not understand why we were even having this conversation or why I was involved as a family friend. After a heated conversation back and forth, he was only willing to add a $200 gas card from Petro Canada. I mentioned the report I had printed in the morning to him and I offered him $450, a reasonable 5% profit based on the wholesale price. Ken said the wholesale price was irrelevant to our deal. Also he had concluded that I was an “unreasonable customer that they were willing to lose. If I wanted to go somewhere else, I may do as I please”, but they will not return the deposit. I was shocked that he was willing to shut the door after giving almost no grounds even with the wholesale report in my hands.
Honest and naïve as I was, thinking that there was no reasoning with this guy, I started to look for a better quote with my new wholesale price report. I called Richmond Nissan and mentioned to the salesperson, Harrison, about the report and why I was calling him. Only that Harrison wasn't specialized in dealing with CarCostCanada deals. I asked him to try his best and indeed he did. He quoted me a $500/month lease price. It took less than 10 minutes. I didn't believe it, I asked Harrison to check the specification 3 times and see if I missed anything. It was a deal ready to go, $500/month, sign the paper and drive the car away, as Harrison put it. Surprisingly, Richmond Nissan only wanted a $500 deposit. I felt absolutely appalled by Ken's attitude just 10 minutes ago. Was I being unreasonable?
I called Ken back and quoted him that price. He gave out a long silence before he blurted, "I'm going have to look into this and I'll call you back." I left him with my direct extension. I sat back down to my desk and checked my email. The wholesale report has charged me on my credit card already. Then there was a second email from the provider. The wholesale report website had found me a real-time dealer who will honour the deal of $1050 above wholesale. I called Harrison with that detail. He wasn't too familiar with the pricing because he had never sold a car based on CarCostCanada report. Five minutes later he got an approval from his manager to lease the car to us for $480/month. I called Ken immediately, trying to inform him that he should put this new quote into his consideration. He wasn't available at the time so I left a message.
At 11:30AM he called me back. He sighed and said, "You know, we're gonna do it. We'll match their quote and I am afraid I can't get your that first payment and gas card since..." Before he could finish I cut him off and gave him the new $480/month quote that had been authorized by Richmond Nissan. He said, "Please stop playing this game...." I stopped there. He was now willing to put the free first lease payment and the gas card back on the table. We recited the terms: $500/month, tax-included, first month free - $500, and a $200 gas card at Petro Canada, no freight charge, and the car will arrive in 3 weeks time from the prairie region. The $480 deal from Richmond Nissan was still better, but I had a conscience and I believed Morrey Nissan of Burnaby incurred an expense of $700 to order the silver and the black car for us.
That day afternoon, Ann, her mom and myself went to the dealership to sign the new contract. Apparently there was some confusion, that we were only signing a deal-sheet, not a contract. Christina, the manager, sent us away with a piece of paper stating the terms both party had agreed to. We were to pick up the car 3 weeks from that day. Christina offered the top-off warranty on the last year of the lease that manufacturer’s warranty does not cover. We kindly declined, as we never purchased such warranty for our past leases. From that day on we were willing to put the past behind us. We sat at $500/month, tax included, first month free, 200 gas card, no freight.
Continue to: 06/10/07---Final Boss?
