Sunday, September 24, 2006

Tall Children

Earlier this year we started looking at new VW New Beetles. We had great discussion on what color to get next. We HAD yellow... do we want yellow again? What about green? Maybe red? I even went as far as taking a poll on ScrapShare. Green won. Normy still said "yellow". Stacy said I best get yellow because that was the only proper color for a New Beetle.

We moved at usual pace on this project. Which means it took us 4 months to finally get a new car. In the intervening time, I noticed that Kaitlyn's head rested on the back window when she sat in the backseat. Emma's head didn't. Yet.

We decided that having Kaitlyn's skull as a roll bar was probably a bad idea. So we started exploring other options.

Renee Wo chose a Jetta as her new car several months earlier. I sat in her front seat. I sat in her backseat (which has a shocking amount of room). I looked in her cavernous trunk. I cringed at the thought of how much more a Jetta would be over a New Beetle.

So I "Built A VW" on the website and was shocked to see a $1500 difference. That was it?? I was expecting $5000 more, minimum. More like $10,000 more, really.

Well, well, well......

So we went on our quest for The Car I Want. It isn't out there. There was one in the color I wanted, but with options I did not. More to the point... a navigation system that would annoy the living daylights out of me every time I got in the car. The salesman said "the woman will tell you where to go!". Hmph. *I* am the woman that tells me where to go. I have an intuitive sense of direction and can read a map. I may be misplaced every once in a long while, but I can always find my way back to the freeway. Even without a map. Plus, I drive to Elk Grove and sometimes to Laguna (just the other side of the freeway, technically also Elk Grove for you non-locals). And if I'm going somewhere I am unfamiliar with.... MapQuest before I go and a stop at AAA for a map.... I'm good.

I need four wheels with tires on my car. They don't need to be bigger and fancier. So I felt no need to pay for either the nav system OR the spiffier wheels. Elk Grove Volkswagen felt no need to take those things off the price.

Alrighty then. Thanks, but no thanks. They were unhappy with us. They had to go fetch this car for us. We gave them a day to change their mind. Then we asked about other colors. Gunther didn't feel the need to help us anymore.

Alrighty then. Norm and I got online and started making inquiries. He was working Niello. I was working Hammer Lane and Roseville.

Roseville got right back to me and asked for more details than the online form really allowed for. I told her what I wanted, what I did.not.want. and my color preferences. Hammer Lane simply said "sorry we don't have any like that on our lot".

Roseville was happy to work with us and get us the one we wanted. The offered us a great deal on an '06, in red, but without the options we DID want. The '07 with the options we wanted was really out of our price range. We sat at Taco Bell and discussed how we might be able to make that work. Then we asked about the '06's with our options (but located on other dealer's lots). That was the happy medium we were looking for.

Friday we made the deal. Saturday they traded one on their lot for our car and we picked it up. We looked at the sticker that had been in the window.

Renee Wo's car? She bought from Hammer Lane, but they had to get it from Roseville.

Ours? We bought it from Roseville, but it came from Hammer Lane. I don't know why they told me they didn't have one on their lot........

I have to read the book to figure out all the buttons:






Sunday, September 17, 2006

-Space For Rent-

Cause apparently I'm not using this space....

Monday, September 11, 2006

9-11-06

May there be peace on Earth.....