New Year, New Car

In 2010 I started off the year with a new apartment and a new job. Not to be outdone, I started this year off with a new bike and a new car! Its the year of new wheels!

I've been driving a Volvo S40 for the past five years and have had a wide variety of mechanical problems with it. Luckily everything has been covered under my warranty and then extended warranty, but the boatload of issues I've had has made me weary of driving the car without a warranty. European cars are not cheap to fix! I knew that when the warranty was up on my car I'd want to get a new one ... and unfortunately that time arrived at the end of 2010. 

 

 

Being an engineer, I've loved the safety aspect of Volvos. If I get in a car accident, I want to be in one of the safest cars they make! Hey, I'm super risk-averse! (Side note, but my cousin's husband who was a personal injury lawyer told me once that engineers are typically over-insured when it came to car insurance. Ding-ding-ding! That's me! I have really high coverage limits on everything!) Aside from liking the safety features of Volvos, I also like the way they look (yep, I'm a square), and I love the fact that almost all maintenance for the first 30K miles is included. Yes, everything! Oil changes, scheduled services, windshield wiper blades, bulbs, etc. Its amazing! You basically don't spend a dime on the car for the first 30K miles! After that, other things that wear down are almost always covered under the 50K warranty. On my S40 I didn't pay anything until 30K miles, and then once I took it on for scheduled maintenance after that, everything that they found that was wrong with the car was covered under the warranty. I *LOVED* this aspect of owning the car! I hate financial surprises! With this car there aren't many!
 

When my S40 came off warranty and I was toying with the idea of a new car, I of course considered another Volvo. This came as an absolute failure in logic to David who asked me why in the world I would buy another car from a brand who made a car that I constantly had in the shop. My defense? Well, everything it was in the shop for was covered under the warranty at least! Honestly I think part of the problems with my car were from it being a 2004 but in the 2005 style. It was one of the first of its design to come out! Gotta get those kinks out!

 

New Car Todd

My friend Todd bought a new car several months ago, and when he did he posted about the process he went through to identify his new car, and the best deal he could get for it. I went back to reread his post before looking at cars, started looking at used and new Volvos on my local dealer's website ... and then got distracted about work and forgot about the new car for a few weeks.

 

Costco Auto Program

Enter Costco! I had mentioned in passing to a coworker that I was looking for a new car and that I loved Volvos. He called me into his office one day and gave me a flyer he got in the mail from Costco. This flyer advertised the Costco Auto Program and a deal they were doing from November to December on the Volvo XC60 and XC90. The deal was $500 off "employee pricing" and a $500 Costco giftcard. WOW! I confessed to him that I was a little nervous about bargaining for a car on my own though, and that while I did want to buy a new car, i was nervous about the prospect of actually doing it. (My friend's husband made the deal on my last car.)
 

To prepare me for the wheeling and dealing, my coworker showed me a number of websites that could arm me with the information I needed to make a smart decision. The first site she showed me was TrueCar, which was a site that Todd mentioned in his car buying blog. This site is REALLY cool. You could look up actual sale prices of the model of car you are interested in around your geographical area. This shows you the minimum, average, and max that people are paying for the car you want. Obviously you then want the best price that anyone is paying! I filled out a form on the Costco website which would connect me with participating dealers in the area. Once that was done, we also looked at a website that would help me asses the deal I would get on trading in my car. 
 

Volvo Dealers

After submitting the online interest form for the car I wanted, I was contacted by two Volvo Dealers in the next 24 hours. One was in San Diego and was the most recent dealer where I'd been getting my S40 serviced, and the other was up in Culver City which is a suburb of LA. My coworker and I went into the local Volvo dealer at lunch one day to see what they had to offer. They honored the Costco deal but "didn't have" the base model XC60 that I wanted. They of course had several loaded versions, and went on and on about how hard it was to keep that version on the lot and to maintain inventory. Yeah okay, pushing scarcity, I get it. Well you know what? Aside from wanting a backup camera, the other options were meh to me. Guess what? Suddenly they could order any type of that model I wanted and it would be delivered within two days from the port in LA. okay .. SLEAZY. I was instantly turned off.

I was in email contact with the other dealer and was going to be up in LA for the day to see my mom, so I made an appointment to stop by the other dealer. Instead of $500 off "employee pricing" which turned out to be invoice, this dealer was $1500 ... and they were upfront about the fact that they could get any model I wnated from the port right away. I came by and met with sales, test drove the car ... but just wasn't ready to make the deal and take on a new loan. I really wanted the car but wasn't ready to make the commitment.

 

Queue the holidays and year end at work, and I kind of forgot about things. Then, during the last week of the year I thought about our own business and the fact that our sales people were doing everything they could to close year end business. I thought, what the hell, I 'll make a pitch to this dealer to drop his last quoted Costco price and see what he says. I asked him to drop an additional $1000 and he responded back saying he'd do $500. Hmm ... DEAL. This put me $200 lower than the lowest listed sale price on  Truecar in the past 90 days.  I was going to buy a new car anyways in the next year (don't like the out of warranty car), and figured I might as well do it now when I had the most leverage.
 

David and I flew back to California from Florida mid-day on December 31st, drove up to LA, signed papers with the dealer, and I was a new car owner! But didn't get a car right away because they had to order it from the port. So anti-climactic! About four days later my car arrived (delivered to my house) and finally I had my new car! Let me just say I *LOVE* my new car! I have trouble parking the darn thing, but aside from that its awesome.

 

Fancy Features

My  new car has a ton of fancy features that my older car didn't.

• Bluetooth enabled - this car is bluetooth enabled meaning I can talk on my cell phone in surround sound. Awesome! As someone who just got a ticket for driving while talking on their cell phone (I forgot my earpiece at home that day), I love this!
• iPod hookup - previously I used a FM transmitter to listen to my iPod on the car. With my new car there is a direct hookup that is crystal clear. Score!
• Sirius Satellite Radio - my new car comes with a free 6-month subscription to Sirius satellite. This reminds me of getting a DVR for the first time. You get one and you don't know if you'll like it and then you can't imagine not having it! I never even tune into normal radio anymore. I love Sirius! I think I'll have to subscribe.
• Queen Seating - sitting high-up in a SUV compared to a regular car is ... great! You can see so much more when you're higher than normal cars. Yay!
• Trunk/Storage Galore - One of the main reasons I liked the XC60 was because of the large cargo area and the ability for me to more easily transport my bike. Cargo area versus trunk wins hands-down for hauling a bike!

 

I love my new car! And I got a great deal! If you are looking for a new car I highly recommend that you look into the Costo auto program. If you find a no-nonsense dealer like I did, you'll find the car you want for a no-nonsense price. And, this price is something you can verify on Truecar.com. I love the internet. It has totally put the power in the hands of the buyer!