Update on the very short saga of buying a replacement vehicle.
First my apologies to Parry the salesman. He’s only been out in Australia for a short time and hadn’t seen a Grandeur up close and personal before.
And now we want to thank him for making that transaction simple … easy … seamless and quick. We now have a replacement vehicle that looks like being everything we had hoped it would be.
So we’ve decided that, because of dodgy knees, it’s time to trade the Hyundai Grandeur for something that we can both just slide into but after the stress levels of yesterday and today I think I’d rather fight a lion bare-handed.
Yesterday we found a Kia Sportage we liked but as soon as we mentioned to the dealer that it had a terrible noise in the drive-line he almost threw us off the lot – there was no attempt at negotiation – it was just: “It’s obviously not the car for you and I’m not ready to sell it anyway” – and he walked away.
Today Toni has been dealing with another salesman who seems to think that Grandeurs should have a four-cylinder motor and doesn’t seem to believe us when we tell him that it’s got a three litre V6 and that’s the way it came from the factory. Why is buying a used vehicle so hard?
And the real killer? A car that was worth over $40k when it was new is only worth just on $3k nine years later. Is it any wonder we’re not thinking of buying new … or even near new … this time?