Well, it's not orange but...

As much as I wanted an orange car, it didn't happen. Very few cars look good orange, and alas the Hyundai Elantra GT 5 door does not. Nor do they even provide that option. However, I do like the silver.

With a full-on winter storm pounding us from above, Q and I decided to go ahead with our plan to look at cars on Saturday. The first and last place we stopped at was Hyundai. Of course I wanted the Tiburon, but I'm not going through a mid life crisis yet. So I settled on taking the Elantra out for a test drive.

The five door looked a little bit nicer than the 4, and had a ton more cargo room too. We took an automatic out, and I discovered that I really liked the car. Q has been preaching the praises of standard transmission lately, so I decided to take one of those out too. I liked this one a whole lot more.

Did I mention we just went to look?

Well, with no money down, 0% financing, and a 5 year/100,000 km warranty, it was hard to pass up. Plus they will take my Echo off of my hands without even seeing it first. It still has 21 months of lease left, but I want to get rid of it. so I have to pay that off too, which raised the price $4000.00. That equaled about $30.00 more a month, which is manageable. The car is more expensive than my current, but the insurance will go down, which will help balance the monthly cost.

I haven't been happy with the Echo lately as there is this funky transmission problem (which Toyota denies), it needs new tires and wipers and brake work. I have realized that I do not want to sink a lot of money into a car that I do not own. Even with having to pay off the lease, Q still thought that it was a good idea. He's a smart man, and I trust his judgement completely. Plus he's great to bring along for bargaining power.

Since I plan on keeping this for a while, I decided to get the best package. I also got a leather wrapped steering wheel and shifter, brushed metal accents around the dash and a sunroof.

When I asked Joe, the salesman when I could get the car, he was all like "When do you want it? Monday? Tuesday? Wednesday?" So I left it in his hands to find me one for this week. Didn't happen.

I called on Monday, but he didn't have an answer. I called on Tuesday morning, but he didn't have an answer. So I called back in the afternoon and left a message. Wednesday he called me and said that it would be about 8 - 10 days before I could get it. Let's just say that that didn't sit well. I wasn't in the greatest of moods, and was more than willing to throw a hissy fit. So hissy fit I did. I explained to him how unhappy and disappointed I was with the news, as he had led me to believe that I could have had the car sooner rather than later. I ended the conversation by telling him that I was a very unhappy customer. He promised to make it up to me. Unless the car comes with a bound and naked Ryan Reynolds in the backseat awaiting my orders, I don't think that there's much he can do. Poor bastard. He's new to the job and got me as customer.

I then called the owner of the dealership to convey my unhappiness, telling him that I didn't appreciate being lied to, or being promised something just so that I would sign a deal and then not have them follow up on it. He apologized, saying that's not what happened and accepted responsibility for the fuckup because Joe is new. Apparently there are a ton of GT models around Ontario, but none with a sunroof (Joe didn't know that). I have to wait for that to arrive by boat in Vancouver and then be shipped here.


So that's my car story.

Work is hell. I have too much to do, and no time to do it.


*** stupid blogger. i tried to post this last night but the servers were down ****