Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Off handed negotiation

Carol and I came down to our home in Panama City Beach for two weeks this past July. As hot as it was here, it was hotter in Rhode Island. Carol's 11 year old Chevy Cavalier convertible sputtered and back fired and basically ran horrible. The day before we were heading back North the check engine light came on. I said we would deal with it in September.
Once here I reconnected the battery and Carol started the car. It started smoothly and ran well. The A/C was weak and we detected a howl when ever the A/C was on. Carol has always liked Mustangs so we went and looked. Used Mustang convertibles are scarce and the new one was way above her budget. The following day, Carol was having a yearly medical test and I went to the GM dealer to see if they had any convertibles. The salesman did a search and said he could find a few Pontiac G6 hardtop convertibles. I took Carol there to look at the images on the internet. She chose a 2007 Crimson Red Pontiac G6 with 17,800 miles. It had to be moved down from Augusta, GA. A final price was negotiated. I was using a Cross pen identical to the one below. I retired from Cross 7 years ago. This pen was delivered to me today from the Cross Company store. The salesman asked me what he had to do to get the pen. Flippantly I said take another two hundred off the price. He did and I gave him my favorite pen.


The car arrived and Carol took delivery of her new convertible pictured below. We went in two vehicles to pick it up. I wanted her to drive it home. There is nothing (my opinion) like that first drive in a new vehicle. It has a satellite radio (free 3 months) and she played it loudly on the way home.

A post script to an earlier post. The temporary fix to the house A/C is still working. Unfortunately another part has failed. We are patiently waiting for the A/C person to come and look at it. We have decided to bite the so called bullet and replace the whole system.

No comments: