Let's talk about cars, shall we?

[bloodsong1]

So my lease is up this October and I'm debating what to do. Do I keep Ripley and find a way to pay the ginormous balloon payment car dealers stick leased cars with, or do I trade her in on another lease, or do I trade her in and buy something like a Maxima or an Altima?

I haven't decided yet. I would prefer to own a car outright, but it depends on the costs.

Today I took her in for service. As I noticed she was just over 30k, I asked for that service to be done, along with tire rotation.

"Sure, it'll be about 3 hours," says the very nice tech.

"Huh. Okay, don't do a half-assed job," says SNB.

"Right-o!" We walk out to Sam's, as I needed to pick up my script, and I apologized for not knowing the wait time. SNB shrugs, as there's nothing we can really do about it, but he's ADD, so we need to find something to keep him from being bored.

(I, on the other hand, can happily sit for 3 hours in a waiting room playing on my phone, watching television and/or reading magazines.)

We wander Barnes & Nobles for about an hour.half, then head over to Taco Bell for lunch, then head back to the dealer. He calls us as we're getting close and is ready with the bill when we arrive.

$255 for 2.3 hours of service, oil, air & cabin air filter, new battery for my key fob, all fluids changed and/or topped off, brakes checked and adjusted and oh, by the way, your rear wheels were bent, so we fixed those and made sure your alignment was correct and we didn't charge you for that.

"Cool!" says I and I pay the bill. We end up cooling our heels for another 15 minutes while they wash Ripley, part of the service. Very Nice Tech calls SNB my husband and I chuckle as I correct him.

"I'm sorry, you act like a married couple!" He says. We thank him, shake hands and part ways.

SNB asks to see the bill as we drive home.

He is not happy.

Turns out he knows how to change oil and such, so to spend that much money for labor time (the bulk of the cost) is obscene and ridiculous and how can you justify paying this when his family had 3 cars growing up and they NEVER serviced anything until something blew up or fell apart.

"I have no problem paying labor time to people who are qualified to do the job," I explain.

He is not happy with me.

I realize I draw a lot of experience about cars from my former job, which were Mercedes and Audis and BMWs, much more expensive cars then my little Sentra. I also know what can happen to a car engine that's not properly serviced. No, really. It WILL come back to bite you in the butt. I don't care WHAT car you drive, changing fluids is REQUIRED MAINTENANCE. If you want to do it yourself, fine. Save that hundred or so now, you're gonna need it later.

I also realize I'm not making $14/hour anymore, but that doesn't mean I'm going to skimp on my vehicle. I NEED my car.

I am waiting to see if this becomes an issue.

Comments

[blaisepascal]

When I leased my bug, the way I handled the balloon payment was to finance it through the same bank that handled the lease. That's probably a standard way to handle the buy-out of a lease.

It's entirely possible/probable that SNB can change the fluids just as well as the service place, and for a much lower labor charge. The garage doesn't have any special magic. But the time to bring that up is not after you've taken him to the garage, asked in his presence for the work to be done, had the work done, received the invoice, and paid the bill. If he was concerned about it, he should have mentioned it when it was possible to tell the garage to not change the fluids.

I'd point out to him that the car is leased, and you are responsible for any damage that may be discovered upon surrendering the car at the end of the lease. As such, you want to be damn sure you have records that the car received proper scheduled maintenance. The garage can provide such records, he cannot.

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with B here.
SNB is a lovely person but did he think they were going to do the work for free? If you ask a professional to do something you are going to have to pay for it.

On the other hand they might have charged you extra for his "don't do a half-assed job" comment. There is such a thing as an annoying customer charge.

[kenshardik]

I agree with both E and B. Also, it's your car and your lease so you handle maintenance the way YOU want to. If SNB insists on picking up on this disagreement, go with B's statement that you want records of proper maintenance because you are leasing.

Here's hoping you can speak adult to adult on this and that he neither treats you like a child nor acts like one.

[page-of-swords.livejournal.com]

I think if I was that Mechanic I would be insulted.

I also in his case would have pushed back a bit.

[page-of-swords.livejournal.com]

Bu is right about the lease and maintenance. You have to prove you did the work on the car. This is why leased high end cars have "Included Maintenance" for the life of the lease since they are going to have to re-sell it and they can pull up the records from their computer.

[alphawench.livejournal.com]

sticking my nose in... first, I agree with the 3 prior comments.

Add to that: when you have three cars (presumably at the same time) you can LET something blow up/fall apart and you have backup when it's in the shop. When you have ONE car, not so much.

Plus the fact that you have two kids who need to be brought to & fro for various things, and you can less afford to have an unpleasant surprise.

[bloodsong1.livejournal.com]

The 3 cars were over the last 20 years. His family never had more then one at a time.

[jellisky.livejournal.com]

After my lease on my Corolla was up, I just took out a bank loan from my current bank to help pay off the balance. It was quick and easy. You can shop around a little on that, too. Most banks like doing after-lease loans, and often will give pretty good interest rates.

I also let the local dealership handle the maintenance on my car, even though I own it all the way now. They do a fine job and seem to know the common issues with particular car models. Obviously, YMMV, but I've had a lot of good experiences with my local dealerships.

-Wes

[bloodsong1.livejournal.com]

Serafini got my loyalty when the sales rep took my wrist a week after Wolf died, sat me down and went over all my options while at the same time listening to my requirements. She didn't push what I couldn't afford and she held my hand through the entire purchase process. I had already worked with the service crew through my old job, so I knew them and liked them.

[page-of-swords.livejournal.com]

Ok replying to this and then the whole post.

That's actually good salesmanship. It's the same thing with my car. They got to sell a car they had difficulty selling, and I got a decent deal. My friend (because everyone has this guy) was like "you could have gotten it cheaper, I have a guy." Yeah yeah yeah. They are hoping I like the 2 and then I will come back for the Miata in 5 years.

We talked about this when I was up there two years ago. Leases have their place.

You like I need our cars for getting to work. THis means that some things I do myself and some things which I can do I have done and pay 75-100 an hour shop labor because the cost of doing it wrong is significantly more or the time factor is much less with their lift, experience, and air tools.

I could do a clutch swap. Am I? Probably not. Because it's going to take me 3 days, and needs half the front of the car taken apart.

However I do my Oil, other fluids, and what not.

[page-of-swords.livejournal.com]

The blowing up, and this sounds like something I would have done back in the day. It sounds like misguided poor people skills. Which I can personally tell you I still have fun internal arguments about and debates with S&R sometimes on.

You hit on to something triggering with him, and it's not you it's the money/car repair thing.

You do not deserve to be yelled at for your decisions. You make good decisions.

For the most part not maintaining equipment is poor economy. I did at the end of the Green Dragon's life started treating it like a 4th stage cancer patient and just waited for it to die but it needed $2000 in parts (not counting the interior and paint was beat up).