For the past many, many months I have been car shopping. As far back as October 2019 I was looking online for one of two things: a car for me, or a car for CootieBoy. CB has put money into a savings account since he was born. It was jump started with a generous gift from Denis’s brother (Olivia’s as well), and then after that I’d throw in money each month. Additionally, whenever they got money for Christmas or their birthdays, my rule was that half goes into savings, the other half could be used for fun stuff. The idea was that once they reached teenager-hood, they would have enough that they could either buy a car OR continue saving and use that money as spending money during their college years.
Last year, CG opted to buy a car and found a great deal through a private sale. That same kind of deal could not be found for CB when the search began, but I kept looking, hoping one would pop up. At the same time, I looked for a replacement car for me, since my 2005 Hyundai Elantra is a great little commuter car but not meant for long trips anymore.
In October I test drove a car that was cute and zippy, but didn’t feel led to pull the trigger on buying it. I kept finding cars online but then would do research and realize they wouldn’t be a good fit (either it had an accident on their CarFax, or it ended up being a salvage vehicle, or a flood vehicle, or any other number of issues I didn’t want to deal with). With an upcoming long-distance vacation approaching, a few weeks ago I realized I needed to get serious and find a car.
CB’s only requirement on his end was that the car be RED. He didn’t care about make, model, year, options, or anything. It just had to be red. In the end I approached him with the idea of using his money to buy the car, and if the price was more than he had money for, I would cover the difference. The reason? I’d trade in my car to lower the price on his, and then effectively “rent” his car until he got his driver’s license.  Any overage would be paid by me to him back into his savings.
Last week I scoured the online listings before finally landing on a car with significant potential. It was a 2014, so not that old. It was a Hyundai, so I was familiar with the brand. It was an Accent, so a little smaller than my Elantra, but not unreasonably so. It only had 43K miles on it. It was under $9K (which was more than CB had saved, but less than I would have spent on a car for myself). And it was RED. I contacted the seller to confirm that it was a clean title with a good history. He confirmed.
On Saturday I hopped in my car and drove an hour away to go check out the car in person. The outside looked great other than some minor wear on the door handles. The inside was immaculately clean. I took it for a test drive and it handled well at low and high speeds. I got my phone connected through the Bluetooth and was able to talk to Denis for a few minutes while I drove around. All in all, it was a good little car.
Once back in the dealer’s office, I said, “What’s the drop-dead, walk out the door, all paperwork completed price on the car.”
He grabbed his calculator and pressed some keys for a moment. “$9200.”
My goal was $8500.
I pointed to my Hyundai, which KBB said wasn’t worth more than $300-400 as a trade in. But every little bit helped. “What if I threw that in?”
He took my keys and went outside to take a look at my car. After a few minutes he came back in and said, “Looks like a decent car considering it’s 15 years old.”
I nodded. “If you look at my car history on CarFax you’ll see all my records dating back to 2006, and will see that I’ve taken very good care of that car.”
He nodded back. “I’ll give you $1000 for it. That’ll take the Accent down to $8200.”
Inside I zinged. That was $300 below what I wanted to pay! But could I get him to go lower?  “Well, let me see how much my son has saved up.” I said. “This is his first car and he’s using his own money to buy it.” I logged into his account on my phone, then said, “My son has $7900 available.”
I paused. I waited. Hoping that the dealer would say, “It’s his first car? I’ll take $7900. No problem.”
He just sat there. He wasn’t budging.
Now, in my head I knew that he had already given me WAY more for my own car than he should have. So after a few more awkward seconds of silence I finally said, “You know what, I suppose I can kick in the other $300 that he’s short. $8200 will work.”
Within an hour, since I basically paid cash for the car, I was emptying stuff from my car into the new car and heading home. Including the 2 hours of driving there and back, the whole process took 4 hours.
Could I have gotten the vehicle for $7900? Probably. I’m sure if I had continued to play the “son’s first car, he saved for years, can you come down another $300” card a few minutes longer, the dealer would have caved. He was a really nice, humble guy and didn’t do ANY hard sell with me. Plus, he gave me $1K for a car that was worth $300-500 tops.
Once I got home I had CB come out and take a look at his new car. He was thrilled with the color, and I think that now that the car has been bought, he’ll more actively work/study to get his permit and then get his license. And in the meantime, I’ll have driven a sweet “new” car back and forth to work in 2020! The car hunt will then begin again, as I seek to find a car for ME to drive once he gets his license (I’ll drive his until I find one).
The only negatives? I no longer have my awesome custom stereo that I installed a few years ago, and I left my “Trainspotting” CD in the CD player to boot. But I’ll be okay, I’m sure.
