Okay, any of our friends and family know that we have been driving the quintessential POS for about, oh, EVER. Our old 1994 Pontiac TransSport van, that we've spent 3 times it's worth just to keep running, whose A/C doesn't work AT ALL and whose power windows don't work and are stuck in the UP position - making it a veritable oven in this Texas heat. Well, it failed it's State inspection in March, so we've been driving around in at just waiting to be pulled over and ticketed. That never happened - HOWEVER, our apartment did tag it for towing, giving us until the 3rd to deal with one way or another. We've had no desire to keep this van, since it's in such bad condition and can't really BE maintained at this point. We've just continued in it waiting for CyberChaun to start teaching this fall (nothing's written in stone about that and we haven't wanted to count our chickens before they hatch - our luck runs in the bad direction most times....) But, under this new deadline, we went ahead and took the plunge and got ourselves a new vehicle! And here's our story:
We weren't sure what we wanted - except a van since we have 3 heathens and then they have friends........ But living in this city we drive by dozens of HUGE car lots of all varieties daily. So, first I did some searching of used vehicles online. I wasn't impressed but found a couple workable possibilities. But for some reason, CyberChaun and I have been drawn time again to this little Kia dealership next to our preferred gas station. So yesterday we decide to just go and see what they had in the way of used Kias. When we got there, we expected to look around, talk to the smarmy salesman/woman who tagged us, be laughed at (because our credit is sketchy at best and we have no down-payment and no one WANTS that van as a trade-in, and we're looking for a low monthly payment). Well, what HAPPENED is a bit different. When we got there, a salesman DID tag us promptly. He introduced himself and asked what we were looking for. We went inside out of this insane heat and we told him our stipulations. He was glassy-eyed for a moment, but then moved on. He noticed our
wedding bands. Well, he soon used a Bible reference as part of his sales pitch and I mentally rolled my eyes. I'm thinking "He did not just try and use my beliefs as a means to sale me a car......" But he was. We talked about our credit and did some pre-qualifying. Turns out, our credit isn't good enough for a bank to finance us on a used vehicle. He explained this and it made perfect sense at the time - but I couldn't begin to repeat it now. So we're on to new cars. Eek! Expensive, serious depreciation, not the direction we wanted to go. But okay - let's see what the guy can do. We went out and took a test drive, and we joked around a little bit. The car was nice - we liked it a lot. Anything, of course, was better than what we HAD been driving after all..... When we got back inside, the guy was pretty sincere (after learning about our current vehicle) about getting us into a car SOMEHOW that fit our needs and our budget. And he worked pretty darn hard to do so. He couldn't quite get the payments down to our maximum monthly payment, but after a lot of rebates and simply knocking off a couple grand more (I don't think he made ANY money off us) he actually got it less than $50 over our max. So we took it. At this point the paperwork began, and we kept waiting for him to come back and tell us that the bank laughed. Or at the very least wanted a co-signer. The next shock came when he said - "it's done, I need your IDs and insurance". Blink Blink. Huh? Yes, absolutely went through without hardly a hiccup. So as I head over to his laptop to go ahead and replace the POS with this brand new vehicle on my insurance, I see something interesting. On his laptop are 2 David Crowder Band stickers........who listend to Dave Crowder band? Well, mostly Christians do. So I make a comment, and he's like "oh yeah! I've been to 2 of their concerts this year and plan on going to another one! They're gonna be at Six Flags with Skillet!" Skillet!!??!! I LOVE SKillet, and it's ANOTHER Christian band. SO here it turns out that guy wasn't just "using" our beliefs against us - actually shares them, and our rings just made him comfortable with sharing his thoughts on our situation. So we get everything taken care of (ouch on the cost of full coverage - it's been forever since we've needed that!) And the salesman goes to get the car ready to drive home! We of course then deal with the sales manager to sign all the dotted lines. When we go to pick up the keys, the salesman had made a quick cardboard sign he'd put in the front, saying "Congratulations! And God has blessed you!" CyberChaun gets into the car and turns on the radio, and guess what? It's already tuned into our favorite
Christian Rock/Alternative station (which isn't the station that gets the most play in this area by a long shot - so it's really cool that the guy knew it)! So it was just pretty darn cool! And since everyone wants to know (pics will follow), we now have a brand new, midnight blue Kia Sorento!
