My New Girl

Ha! Perhaps I fooled you again? Perhaps not?

Well here she is. I can’t formally introduce you to her yet, fore she doesn’t have a name. I need a little time to see what her personality is going to be like.



Sadly, I haven’t spent much time with her yet, but we get along great! I see great things in the future!

Here are some her stats:
297HP V6 Engine
Rear wheel drive
5-speed A/T with manual shift mode and Down shift rev matching
Power folding rear seats
8-spoke 18 x 8.0-inch alloy wheels
Rear integrated spoiler
Scratch shield paint
LED taillights
Intelligent key with push button ignition
8-way power driver’s seat
Black lacquer and aluminum trim

In addition to those stats, she comes with the following packages:
Premium package
Technology package
Navigation package
Luxe Style package
For more info on the packages, click here.

I’ll be posting some pictures to a picasa folder in the near future (i.e. probably next week sometime)

The buying experience:
I was satisfied with the way infiniti treated me. Justin, my sales guy, was pretty knowledgeable with the product and did a good job answering my questions. Yet, i still left with that slimy-gross-I-need-to-take-a-shower-to-cleanse-my-body-of-the-I-have-
just-been-taken-advantage-of-feeling. Maybe it is just my distrust of car salesmen, insurance companies, and circus clowns…actually, I have nothing against circus clowns. But, honestly, I don’t think I was cheated too bad. I didn’t pay MSPR, but did get as low as I wanted on the price of the car. However, with my trade in (an ode to Petey post may follow), and a good financing rate, I was able to meet my goals for this purchase.

I got a dose of the never-heard-that-happening-befores with this buying experience. As any sensible buyer would do before buying a car is to arm oneself with as much information as possible. This includes getting at least one quote from another source on your trade in. Usually the best place to get that quote done is Carmax. It has been my experience that Carmax usually offers the best money for your trade in. Dealers usually low ball you so that they inflate their profit margins (one reason I get that slimy-gross-I-need-to-take-a-shower-to-cleanse-my-body-of-the-I-have-
just-been-taken-advantage-of-feeling.) Not so this case. The dealer actually gave me more for my trade in than Carmax…and this is before the tax credit.

The deal was almost a no go…because they wouldn’t budge on the price of the car. But I asked them to appraise Petey just to see what I could get for him. I never told them the value that Carmax had given me, not 40 minutes earlier. When I got the appraisal, I was shocked. The salesman was shocked. Infiniti gave me $500 more for my trade in than Carmax. BTW, the salesman was shocked before I told him that they just beat Carmax’s offer. As I type this, I’m wonderin’ if there was some shady deal goin’ down that I didn’t know about? At any rate, the extra $500 actually was closer to $800-900. You see, I get a tax credit by trading in at the dealer…lowers the final taxable price of the car. Also, I wasn’t charged a fee (well, maybe I was, I just didn’t see the cost) for selling the vehicle to infiniti. At Carmax there is about $150 fee for all the paper work…and this, of course, comes out of your quoted price.

When I heard the trade in value they were giving me, I quickly did some head-calculation and decided I’d go for it. With nothing down, and only my trade in, drive out was just below what I wanted to pay. I wanted to put a sizable chunk down on the car (at least 20%) but I had to move some money around. Unfortunately, it takes a few days for the money to show up in my account. They weren’t willing to wait for that, so we worked another deal. JSC FCU was offering the same rate on a 72 month loan as a 60 month loan. The good news is that there is no prepay penalties. So, what I am going to do is put what would’ve been my down payment towards principle on that first payment. This alone will knock off 15 or 16 months. And I most likely will pay more each month to principle. I’d like to have this thing paid off in about 48 months…or sooner, if I can.

So, long story short, I’ve got a new girl…and I like her A LOT!