My daughter’s car was in sad shape. It was missing a headlight. One of the doors was almost impossible to unlock and open. The brakes were bad. The roof leaked. So she decided to buy a new car. Last Monday, she stopped at at a used car dealer and found what she was looking for. The dealer bragged that they offered “car buying the way it should be.” The dealer said they were willing to give her money for her old car. My wife and I had co-signed for it, so I had to go along to sign the title.
Every time she called the dealer to make arrangements, she ended up talking with a different guy. It got very confusing, so when she found the same car at another branch of the same dealer in Wisconsin, she figured it was simpler to drive up there on Tuesday and take a look at it than try to get it down here. She went up and decided to buy that one instead. The Wisconsin dealer agreed to have it driven down to the local dealer.
The appointment to buy her car was at 5:00 this afternoon. At 2:30, a guy named Gerry called and asked if she was still coming in. She said she was. He then informed her that he would have to go to Wisconsin and drive the car back.
After work, I followed my daughter over to the dealer. We arrived around 4:45. Gerry was waiting for us and ushered us into his office. This was good, I thought, we’ll get this over with and be out of here.
Not so fast. First there was the issue of the title on her old car. Illinois won’t let you co-own a car with the terminology “____or ___.” It has to be “_____and______,” which meant that my wife also had to sign the title. But my wife was at home, and it was snowing and blowing and traffic was horrible and I wasn’t about to ask her to drive 20 miles just to sign her name and drive 20 miles back. We sat around in Gerry’s office for a while trying to decide what to do. He kept leaving, then returning, then leaving, then returning.
Then my daughter had to talk with the insurance company. She’d made arrangements with Bob, but Bob went on vacation yesterday. So she talked with Marla and got everything taken care of.
Then Gerry asked for my daughter’s last pay stub. He left again. Then he came back. The information he needed was partially cut off on the bottom of the stub. Did she have another check? No, she just started her new job and only had the one pay stub. Well, Gerry said, that wouldn’t work — she’d have to get our loan from another bank that didn’t need proof of employment, and she’d have to pay $6 more a month for the service. OK. Whatever.
Did my daughter have the keys to her old car? Yes. Gerry took them and left. Ten minutes later he returned. He couldn’t unlock the car. My daughter explained that she’d left the car unlocked. Gerry disagreed. He said he’d tried both doors. My daughter said she knew she’d left it unlocked, but she’d go out with him. She grabbed the handle and pulled. The door opened. She came back inside.
Five minutes later, Gerry was back. How do you get the key out of the ignition? You push while you turn? OK, he’d be right back.
He finally returned. He said my wife needed to sign the title. Would she be home? Yes. OK. He’d follow us home and have her sign it there. I said that was nice, but that we could come in on Saturday. No, that wouldn’t work. He was busy on Saturday. He left. Then he came back. He said, “we’re printing the papers. It takes 20 minutes.” Then he left.
Fifteen minutes later, he came back and said they’d just started printing the papers, and it would just be 10 or 15 minutes. He pointed to the screen on his computer to back up what he was saying. The screen said that there were 17.9 minutes remaining. He left.
I wandered around the showroom and bought a bag of peanuts. Gerry came back and ushered us to another office and introduced us to Pat. Pat was a nice lady who didn’t leave us even once. She ran through all the papers and had us sign about 50 of them.
At 7:10 or so, more than two hours after we’d arrived, my daughter finally saw her car.
Then Pat came out and had her sign one more paper. I waited in my car. It took us 47 minutes (Gerry timed it) to get to our house from the dealer. My wife signed the title. Gerry left. It was almost 8:30.
But I’ve been thinking — if that was car buying the way it should be, I don’t ever want to buy a car the way it shouldn’t be.
