Our kid is a Superstar!... oh, and we bought a car.

I feel really grateful to have the kid I do. We hauled her around to do a lot of things weekend and she was such a trooper. She really helped keep us in a good mood as we faced some frustrating moments. Thank you Riley for being you.

Wearing Daddy's shoes

 This was yet another weekend where we focused on car resolution so we could actually buy a car and replace the Lemon... aka Mazda. Going into the weekend I am pretty sure my husband's frontrunners for a new car was a used 2011 Kia Sorento or a used 2010 Nissan Murano. The Sorento we both drove and liked, but we had yet to drive the Murano. We had driven a different Murano which I liked and he... not so much. I was leaning toward the  brand new 2011 Kia Sportage, myself. I thought it was a pretty good car, it was smaller, it had dual climate control, and it turns on a dime. So Jesse agreed to drive the Sportage again and admitted he did like it. We both had some concerns about it, but they weren't deal breakers.

We decided that before we went any further we had to get a number from the Mazda dealership as to how much they were willing to give us for trade in. Another Morrie's dealerships told us that it was $14,500 in their system and they would have to honor that. However, we thought that was too low. Last week we sent an email stating that we wanted $15,300 or we were going to the Attorney General. We never received a response, but Saturday they upped the trade in price to $15,000. We decided to go with it since there were some other purchasing incentives on the table. We still weren't sure if we were going to buy used, new, or even from a dealership outside of Morrie's, but we were assured that we could go to another Morrie's dealership and the $15,000 would be honored.

On the way home we stopped and drove the Murano. The Murano was top of the line when sold in 2010, but I wasn't impressed. And it was apparent that it was previously owned my a smoker. A serious, hard core smoker. No way was I going to buy this car and I made myself known to Jesse and the sales guy. Pretty sure my attitude was fueled by an empty tummy, tired kid, and a morning at several dealerships.

After food and naps (I took one too) we headed back out to Kia to look at the Sportage. Jesse and I had crunched numbers and compared all the cars pros and cons and decided this was the car for us. When we got there the sales guy headed off to find out what the deal was with the trade in price only to come back (after a long wait) to tell us he could only honor the $14,500 in the system and that he didn't even try to call the Mazda dealership. After a string of foul language ran through my head we left... angry, saddened, disappointed. We left a message for the Mazda sales guy hoping we could still resolve this, but not happy with the overall customer service we had received.

We decided to look outside of Morrie's again and headed over to Honda. Unfortunately, due to the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan, they didn't have any new CRV's. We gandered at a used one, but I knew that Jesse wasn't really inspired to get another CRV. While we were there we received a call from Kia assuring us that they would honor the $15,000 now, but we needed to get over there asap to close the deal if we wanted the car that day. I was hungry and tired and really wanted to used the deal I had purchased to eat at the Loop (especially since it was the last day to use it). Curses to car dealerships for not being open on Sundays.

We were told that they would clean up the car while we ran home, grabbed the title and ate quickly. When we arrived the car hadn't been touched yet. Whatever. We'll talk to the finance guy while it's getting cleaned up, right? Not exactly. We had to wait and wait. But finally we were able to meet with the finance guy who listed the car for about $260 more than it was listed on the website. You're not getting that one past me Mr. finance guy! He corrected the price, but downplayed it by saying "it's really only taking about a dollar of per payment". Yeah, but that's still my money buddy.

Anyhoo, there are a lot more details that I could share, but they are either of uninterest or they'd make me get upset. All in all I am just glad it is behind me. We are still connected to Morrie's, but at least we aren't driving a car that we had been lied to about not having been in an accident.

Again, the upside of the whole day was how fantastic our kid was all day long. Outstanding! The only time she got a little pissy was right before lunch/nap time, but so did I. Otherwise she was well behaved and in a good mood all day. She seems to love dealerships. They have lots of room to run around, stairs to climb, play areas, big people chairs to sit in, and bathrooms that echo. All exciting stuff to a 17 month old.

Sitting in a chair like a big girl

Kia's dealership also had this alien cardboard creature that she became fascinated with. She ran up to it, pointed, and said "daddy!". I brought her up close to it, and she was a little apprehensive at first, but then loved to push it to have it bounce back at her.

Thanks to Riley Jesse has now found his doppelganger.