One of the key things coming from a supervisor's meeting earlier this week was that from December 27th to January 20th. There was no days off and that could be extended to mid February. My 2011 lease ending on January 18th meant very little time to get that kind of thing done. In my job, I have the ability accept or decline any job but declining jobs where I am supervisor costs me a ton of money so I only generally decline ones (I rarely turn down work of any kind...) where I am not the supervisor or am not driving. (driving is very lucrative especially in a LEAF!)
The other thing was that we had a company car that was wrecked in February 2013 that had still not been replaced. This has made using a personal car more readily available and needed in most cases. This is fine by me since it does put more money in my pocket but does put wear and tear on my vehicles as well. But this also allowed me to maximize the mileage on my 2011 LEAF. Before the company van was wrecked, I was on pace to turn in my LEAF with about 38,500 miles of my 45,000 mile allowance used. As it was, I turned in the vehicle with 44,598 miles (Damn, let 402 miles get away!) and only after a concerted effort to drive the LEAF less from Mid November on.
So I had a opportunity to get a good deal on a (very well) used Toyota Corolla and I bought it the first week of December. It was only 2200 and change. The deal I offered the lot was $2500 cash out the door and they took it. The car had a lot of miles on it but had never been wrecked, drove straight down the road and it would only be used for freeway miles anyway, so hoping to get 40-50,000 miles out of her.
So using my employee discount, I processed a request online to send a bid sheet to 4 dealers; (my portal only listed 3 so adding the 4th was like pulling teeth!) Olympia, Puyallup, Tacoma and Fife. I did meet a salesman at Oly but was not sure how the Employee discount worked and whether I could get it thru him. Probably should have called him to see if he could work it but...didn't think of it at the time.
I wanted S with charge package and floor mats in Blue with Red as 2nd choice. In my email, I advised I was shopping multiple locations and was price shopping right now. Only one of the four came back with a price without a few rounds of email tag; Olympia, and at $179.08, it was over $100 cheaper than the next best price. So I immediately responded to them with "Is this price firm?" and for kickers as about an SV with charge package and got a price I expected soooo...
Anyway, based on comments at MNL, I thought a lease turn in inspection would be quick and easy, so due to snow in the valley up North, my job for yesterday was cancelled so I was looking at nearly whole day in front of me with no commitments! So i swung by Oly Nissan (after all, they did give me a quote right off the bat without having to play email tag to get any info out of them) and it was then I found out that the dealer does not do the inspections. They are done by a 3rd party. So had to schedule an appointment. Well this really put my plans of picking up my LEAF next week on the 26th in a major bind. ( this is reason I left those 402 miles on the odometer!)
But my salesman did a once over and thought that the $500 allowance on damage/excessive use would cover the issues I had (broken antenna for one!) so they agreed to "ground" the vehicle there to have the inspection. I was not real comfortable doing that because I wanted the chance to fix whatever first. It was also not ready to be turned in The interior was pretty dirty...crackers, chips, cookies, etc from my Son!! Now it wasn't real bad. I did a vacuum and wash for Steve's 100,000 mile event just a few days ago but somethings just don't take very long.
To get my color, Oly had to do a dealer trade with Tacoma (meaning supplies getting tight) and closest they had in blue included mud flaps. I was ok with that. so that jumped the quote a bit. But my salesman had problems getting the numbers go thru and finally determined a price higher in the mid 2's. Now I went from way cheap to a bit higher than I had anticipated. He also could not find the $1,000 loyalty cash offer. This took a bit of time but they did have a VERY nice espresso machine in the lobby so waiting around was not too bad. Plus my car had not arrived yet from Tacoma anyway. And I was about 7 hours earlier than planned.
Eventually they figured out that I was never put on the loyalty list (at least that is what they said) so they called someone in Nissan who verified I had gotten a LEAF (I personally thought it was easier to look out the window at my LEAF sitting in the service drive ;) ) and I was added to "the list". Now this does not explain why I received an email early last Spring with the offer but anyway, I got it. This made my payment $245.75 a month. I was expecting 220ish but this was still better than any other quote (2nd place was Puyallup at $289 a month) So I took it.
The details;
Price; $29,000.00 (includes destination, $150 fee
acquisition fee $595
MF .00008
"down payment" $9150 (which is $7500 fed tax thingy, $1000 loyalty cash and $650 for "something"
Residual; $12,179.70 (39%)
Rent Charge; $35.95
FYI; paperwork says first payment is "due now" so wondering if they will be calling for a check. there is also no tab fees listed here so don't know if that was all combined in the $29,000 price (I had not included it and came up with $28,800 without mudflaps so...) Normally, tab fees are nothing to worry about since they run about $35 in my area (no rapid transit tax here!) BUT its an EV with $100 tab fee... so, guessing they might be asking for a check on that too... but for now!
Ok; good deal, ok deal or bad deal?? As always, I have reserved space "just for you" to respond!
I will be writing up my thoughts on the S verses SL debate soon or at least as soon as I drive the car enough to get an impression anyway! Only have 30 miles on it so far and most of that was around town errands yesterday. Have only one 7 mile freeway jaunt, so need to take it on the road for the "wind and rattle" check.
so stay tuned!
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