It Sells Itself

Scott and I tried to buy a car last weekend, the Acura MDX, which got the highest safety rating in Consumer Reports and has room for three car seats, bless it. We wanted this car bad. And we were well prepared to go head-to-head with the dealer. We looked up the inventory price. I trolled car fanatic chat rooms to get a sense of the going rate for a base model and researched car dealer lingo so I could translate what the salesman was saying when he "talked to his manager." Scott and I practiced our good cop/bad cop routine, with me in the role of bad cop.

As we walked into the show room, I got an excited little flutter in my stomach. When I was a kid, my parents would take us to a used car lot on Memorial Day and tell us it was an amusement park. We totally bought it because there really was a carnival atmosphere: There were giant blow-up clowns waving their empty windsock arms on the roof of the dealership, free popcorn and balloons for the kids, plastic flags in red, white and blue, and men sweating through their polyester three-piece suits as they demonstrated the incredible features of the 1979 Datsun 510 station wagon, replete with wood panels and a carpeted trunk with fresh vacuum lines running across it.

I still love the smell of fresh paint on a tire. And there I was, in a show room on Memorial Day, ready to make a deal and drive that car home today, ladies and gentlemen.

But something was off. There was a noticeable absence of confetti. There weren't even any giant SALE signs painted in fluorescent bubble letters on the dealership windows. And inside, it was as quiet as a museum. We had to ask to see a salesman and when one finally approached us, he did so reticently, as if he thought maybe we were armed.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Don*." (*Not his real name. His real name was Darnell.)

"Hello," Scott said brightly, already playing good cop. "I'm Scott and this is Elise."

"Ffft." I said, dropping a pretend cigarette on the floor and putting it out with my toe.

"Can I help you?" Don asked.

"We'd like to buy an SUV," Scott said.

"Well, we'd like to look at an SUV," I interjected, elbowing Scott in the ribs. "Let's not make this too easy," I muttered under my breath.

"Did you want a new car? Or a used car? We have several 2007s." Don made a lackluster sweep of the showroom with one arm, then dropped his hand to his leg as if he were suddenly very tired.

"Let's look at the 2010s," Scott said. Don pointed to a gleaming black SUV several yards away. "There you go," he said. "Over there."

"Did you want us to know anything about the car?" Scott asked. "Could we look inside?"

Don opened the back door and stood silently next to us.

"How's the trunk space?" I asked.

Don opened the back door.

"Do the seats fold down?" I asked. Don folded down one seat.

"Not a lot of room back here," I frowned.

Don shook his head. "You're right," he said. "You could fit a few suitcases, but you might struggle to fit a stroller too."

"Ummm," said Scott. Clearly, he was having trouble remembering his lines.

"Maybe we should take another look at the Infinity," I prodded. This was part of the act we'd rehearsed just that morning over bagels.

Don's face brightened. "I used to sell Infinities," he said, and whistled. "They're beautiful cars. If you were going to travel any kind of distance, you might be more comfortable in an Infinity."

"Well, maybe we can test drive the Acura?" Scott asked helpfully.

"Is it a problem that we had a few drinks at lunch?" I asked Don, hoping to snap him out of his malaise. Scott struggled to keep a straight face.

"I won't tell if you don't," Don said, shrugging his shoulders. Then he pressed a button on his walkie talkie and asked that the car to be brought to the curb.

He led us to the test drive vehicle, a reddish-brown model. "What do you think of the color?" Don asked.

"I think it looks like someone had a perforated bowel and..." Scott put his hand over my mouth.

"I don't like it either," said Don.

While Scott and I took turns driving and arguing over the radio station, Don sat silently in the back seat. "Handles great!" Scott enthused. "Bad blind spot," I replied. Don said nothing.

When we returned to the show room, Scott bounded out of the car, took Don's hand and said: "Let's make a deal!"

Don led us to a table in the window. He named a price and I showed him an add from an Acura dealer in Brooklyn. "I'm sure we'll match that," said Don.

Don then looked over his shoulder and pushed a document toward me, pointing to the inventory price on a schedule. "You can probably get the car for this," he said.

"We checked the inventory price," I said triumphantly. "I was $800 less than this."

"Well, we recently had an increase in the transfer fees," Don explained. He pulled out a memo stamped "Confidential" to dealers from Acura, advising of an $800 increase in transfer fees.

"Let me leave you two alone to think about it," Don said.

"Let's try to get $1,000 off the inventory price," Scott said.

"I truly think he is already offering us the car at almost no profit to the dealership," I responded. "This guy isn't playing hardball. In fact, I think he wants us to leave."

When Don returned, Scott smiled and seemed to search around his mouth for his tongue. I leaned forward, removed my sunglasses and said dramatically, "We'll take the car today if you can take another thousand off the price."

"Hell, no," Don said. "They won't do that."

"Why don't you ask your manager?" Scott said affably.

Don left and came back a few minutes later. "We can take another $200 off. But that's it."

"We'll have to think about it," Scott said.

Don stood and offered his hand.

"Wait!" I said. "It's May 31st. Aren't you worried about losing your spiff if you don't hit your mark?" I didn't want to leave without showing off the fruits of my research. A spiff is an end-of-month bonus if a car salesman hits his mark or quota.

Don looked at me sadly and shook his head. He didn't even see us out the door.

"Way to go," I said to Scott through gritted teeth. "You had to try to get below invoice. Now Don thinks we're grinders."

"Shut your clam," Scott said. "I know how this works. Don will call us tomorrow and we'll get our car at our price."

I called Scott at his office the next afternoon. "Did Don call? I asked.

"No," said Scott. "But he probably starts his shift at 4."

"I can't believe it," I said. "We are such losers. We were practically begging Don to sell us a car. And now we've blown it. I really wanted that car!" I felt a big whine coming on.

"If he doesn't call tomorrow, we'll go back and offer him another $500," Scott soothed.

"Okay," I said.

"But I'm going to demand that they detail the car first and bring the paperwork to my office by messenger."

"Okay, tough guy," I answered. "And if they won't messenger over the paperwork?"

"If I have to go in there, I'm going to make sure I get a free cup of coffee."