A Happy New Year to Me!

Happy New Year Car to Me!

Last night I bought my very first car--all by myself. I guess that makes me an adult--though I have been fighting it for the past 8 years. Guess I can't anymore. :)

Anyway. Here are some pictures. It's an ice blue 2007 Hyundai Sonata. I love it. It is so fancy compared to my little Altima I had before. Its definitely an upgrade.



This morning in my driveway (yes, that is ice on the car-it was 30 degrees outside! I know, I know, I am such a wuss now.)

So here is the story. I saw the car the Roseville Automall website on Monday and was interested. I still had a month before my registration was up on the Altima so I wasn't feeling particularly stressed about getting one immediately. I sent a message on their website to inquire about it. One of the sales reps called me back pretty quick, but I didn't have time to talk about it so he said he would email me the specs.

I didn't get the email, so last night I thought I would swing by for a test drive before going to the movies. Yeah, I didn't make it to the movies. But I'm okay with that. :)

When I got there, the guy who helped me didn't really know too much about the specs of the car. Fortunately I had done my homework, so I did. At first the guy had a hard time finding the car because apparently someone tried to buy it earlier. Everything was done (they had even detailed the car), but then a minor detail--something about the drivers' licence not being valid--ended the deal. Imagine that. So it was sitting, literally, in front of the front door of the dealership. While we were walking around trying to find the car, I saw a few others and checked them out, but I wasn't super impressed and/or they were out of my price range.

I took the Sonata for a test drive and it was so beautiful. And when I pushed the gas pedal, the car accelerated, and it was sooo smooth and quiet! Because I am used to driving a 4 cylinder and the Sonata is a V6 it was such a big difference! Yeah! The car is so much bigger than the Altima--it will take some time to get used to that. And the gas mileage is so much better. I can get over 400 miles in one tank! There is even a button that tells you that! Ha!

We came back and the financing guy came out to chat while they were determining the trade-in value of the Altima (they ended up giving me more than I expected). I let him know what I was looking to do. Then I waited. There was a lot of waiting actually. Good thing I had my phone (Yeah!) to entertain me. I tried calling my mom like a million times to get feedback, but apparently she had practice and was unavailable (weird, I know, maybe she was avoiding my calls...hmmm...). Well anyway. I decided to be a big girl and decide by myself.

At one point the sales and finance guys realized that by buying my car now, I wasn't going to have to register either car. They told me that was convenient. I told them that "it was like I had planned it or something." They laughed. And then they realized that I was serious and were surprised at my forethought. Then I asked them if they could fill up the gas tank (its a 17 gallon tank). Again they were surprised. And they agreed, so I agreed. :)

So I bought it. It was on their clearance list so they had dropped the price by $3,000 last week for the end of the year. And then they added a security system for free because I was himming and hawwing about adding on the extra "Gap" insurance. And he lowered my interest rate. So I did it. It will also lower my insurance too.

The best part?! I had to clean out the Altima (it was disaster) and when I finished transferring everything over (the trunk of the Sonata is HUGE!) I took one last look at the Altima and saw that there was antifreeze leaking all over. I took that as a sign that it was meant to be. Then I took the keys and got out of Dodge, er, Ford (ha ha ha! I am so funny!). :) Actually the sales guy said that the paperwork was already signed and that it wasn't my problem. Yeah!

So lesson learned: good timing + new car = happy Megan! And happy new car to you!

Update: So I took my car in to get the security installed and they told me that because there are a few chips in the windshield, they are going to replace it at the same time--for free! Woo hoo!