The Stork is finally coming!

The Stork is finally coming! (Pics Added)

So here's my story...

Currently drive a modified Audi A3. It's a blast and I loooove Audi. But then my daughter happened. New baby meant more space needed. More space needed meant moving out to the country to afford a nice new mcmansion. Nice new mcmansion in the country meant my daily commute went from 10 miles each way to 32+ miles each way. Sooo... priorities have changed a bit. Not liking putting 13 gallons of premium into my car every 4 days.

Ok, let's go car shopping. I thought about some of the new fuel efficient cars like the Focus. Also thought about getting a Golf TDI. But then I figured ANY of these were going to be a step down from what I was currently driving, so if I'm going to go for fuel efficiency, might as well go balls out and get the Prius. Well, that's settled. Let's go buy one. Easy, right?

Hellllllll no!!!
Went to the first dealer with my wants/needs. No, make that all NEEDS. I figure it I'm going to do this, i'm getting as much prius as possible... Prius Five, loaded to the gills. And if i'm going to spend that much money on a Prius and driving it this much, I'm getting EXACTLY what I want. No settling. And I'm a car guy at heart so I never settle anyway, wasn't going to start now. So I tell them what I want. They don't have it but one is in the system in Louisiana. I'm in Houston. No biggie, they will ship it in. So we settle on Costco's pricing of $400 over invoice. Nice. Then they give me a sort of low, but acceptable offer on my A3. But at least I'm saving on the tax and don't have to deal with selling privately. So they go and make the call, and are told that the car is sold. Ugh. Ok, next dealer.

Go in, tell them my needs. No problem... we show two in the system. Uh-huh. We settle on price. Same deal as before except this time there is like an extra thousand bucks of dealer add-ons like tint, vip security, etc. Well, i need tint anyway, and apparently these things are harder to find than I thought, so... ok. Deal. Guy goes to make the call. Comes back. One is sold, but one is available. They drive it in from Plano. I go back a couple days later. Sign some paperwork, then the guys sends me into the garage where it's all clean and waiting for me, while he goes to prepare the financing paperwork. I open the door and wouldn't you know it.... the WRONG interior color! They apparently don't know the difference between Misty Gray and Dark Gray. Now I'm livid, and extremely frustrated. I try to get them to give me that car until they find another to replace it, but there was no way. No other car exists, and no more coming in any time soon. So i leave. Time to move on to Plan B.

I remembered we have a family friend that works at GST. Gulf State takes care of the distribution for the whole region. So I ask if there is a way to find out if what I want is available, or coming in any time soon. And if so, where is it, or what dealer is getting it. At this time, my wife decides she wants one too. I'm looking for Winter Gray, she wants Sea Glass Pearl. Other than the exterior, identical specs. So they say they have both coming in within the month, two different shipments. They can put a hold on them and send them to whatever dealer I want where they will do the paperwork. Cool! A couple days later I hear back from our friend. Sorry.... ends up we can't do it. Fair Trade Act. Foiled again!!!! Ok, well do you know what dealers in the whole gulf state are getting them? Nope. Ugh. Alright, time ti move in to Plan C!

PM our own Dianne Whitmire at Carson Toyota in California.
Me: Hi Dianne, do you ever sell out of state?
D: Sure, all the time.
Me: Do you have these two cars?
D: Yup.
Me: How much
D: A hell of a lot less than you were gonna pay in Houston.
Me: I'll TAKE'EM!!!
How freakin easy was that?! Then Dianne hooks me up with Penfed Credit Union where I got the 1.99% financing, saving me even more! All said and done, even with shipping, we saved a ton of money and had an easy hassle free transaction. Our experience with Dianne just blew away anything local. The only issue is i need to drag my butt down to motor vehicle place to register and pay the tax once they get here. Small price to pay for finally getting exactly what we want and for a fantastic price, rising gas prices be damned. :rockon:

So both our cars should be here sometime this week! :rockon:
I already have eibach lowering springs, and some of you have participated in my wheel choosing thread. Will need to make a final decision on those soon. I also currently have two friends battling over my A3... more quite a bit more than I was going to trade it in for. Woot!

Moral of the story... don't settle. And if your local dealer is jerking you around, call Dianne! There's no reason you are stuck buying locally.

Now if only that truck would hurry up!

 

Heyyyy.... trolling sounds so negative.

 

Would have been nice if it was offered, but I wanted everything else more.

 

I think i heard it was to keep weight down? Otherwise they would have to list different MPG ratings for the Five, which is already pushing it. So i heard.

 

Ok, so the story gets crazier!

So this morning I'm on my way to work. It's a 45 min drive when there's no traffic. I'm about 10 minutes from the office and I get a call. It's the truck driver. He's somewhere on the freeway getting a signature from someone he just dropped a car off with, and he'll be at my house in like 40 minutes. Ack! So now I have to turn around and go back home! So I get off the freeway, make the next u-turn and get back on the freeway. 5 minutes later and I'm passing some dealerships. I'm going by subaru and parked in front on the service road is a big car trailer with two Prii on top in our colors! I'm like "uh-uh!, really?" So once again I get off the freeway, u-turn and come back around on the service road and sure enough, those two Prii have Carson Toyota plates. So i pull in front of the guy and put on my flashers just as he was about to pull out. I walk up to his cab and was like , "Hey, i was just talking to you on the phone!" So we had a good laugh and I said why don't you follow me because our neighborhood is new and won't show on the maps yet. He said why don't you just put your car on the truck?! I said OK! So i pulled it around back and then he loaded it up. Then I got my first ride in a huge 18-Wheeler. :rockon:

Here's the pics!

Loading up my modified (and soon to be sorely missed ) A3.


Back home at the entrance to our neighborhood, getting ready to unload.



And unloaded. Wifey gets the green and I get the gray.




And then I immediately jumped in and headed BACK to work!
No dealer to show me how to do anything so I'm driving and trying to figure out how to turn on the AC, radio, find my gas gauge, etc. But I arrived unscathed.

Thanks again, Dianne! :kiss:

 

haha, ya... that cluster of homes behind the white pickup truck in the background is where we live. They're still developing that section of the neighborhood. I took my A3 to the house and walked back while the guy was unloading the new cars. Then we drove them both back to the house.

 

Ya, i paraphrased.
But compared to everything I had to deal with before talking to you, that's how quick and easy it felt.

That's great to know about the facetime! I think we've got a handle on it (going to be setting up entune and all that today) but if we run into any issues I'll let ya know.

Thanks!

 

It's called the Lexus CT200h.
Actually if it wasn't so small, that's what I would have bought.