Weekend News

Friday night at about 11pm, we became proud owners of a 2008 Nissan Sentra. We were thrilled, exhausted but thrilled! Here's how it went down.

John and I have been looking for a replacement car for him for the past few weeks. His car was pretty old and quickly running out of life. We had been saving our pennies for about a year and the time finally came when we were able to begin seriously searching for John's new car. John started scouring the internet, calling dealers and researching vehicles. We looked at so many different cars and it was difficult to narrow down our search criteria. We eventually decided on our must-haves:

• 4 door sedan
• under 50k miles
• 2007 or newer
• A/C
• CD player
• under $10,000

We didn't need a lot of frills or a luxury package, but because we live in Orlando, A/C was probably our highest priority. We quickly narrowed down our search to Hyundai's and Nissan's. I know there are other vehicles that fit our criteria but for a variety of reasons, we couldn't agree on any of those, so we stuck with Hyundai's and Nissan's. Our search was looking bleak as everything we looked at was out of our price range.

But all that changed on Friday night. I got home from work and John asked if we could look for cars on the internet again. I said yes and we started going through all the dealerships in town, looking for Hyundai's and Nissan's. On the third or fourth website we spotted a gray 2008 Nissan in our price range. I couldn't believe it! I immediately grabbed the phone and called the dealership to see if it was still on the lot. The salesman that I talked to actually thought that it had already been sold, so he told me that he was going to see if he could find it and touch it before he gave me a definite yes or no. We were on pins and needles as we waited for him to call us back. Had it been sold?? Was that the real price?? Could this be the car?? And just when I thought I was going to die of anticipation, the phone rang. The salesman told me that the car was still on the lot!! And the price had just been reduced the night before! That's why the salesman thought the car had been sold. But it hadn't!

John and I were originally planning on going around to dealerships the next day, but with the deal of the year at our fingertips, I couldn't wait until the next day. I told John to grab the keys and we told the salesman we were on our way. It was 8:30pm and the dealership closed at 9pm but I didn't care. We raced across town (driving safely and within posted speed limits) and arrived at the dealership at 9:05pm. The salesman showed us the car with all it's features, told John all about the engine, and even let us test drive it...all afterhours. We talked it over and decided that this was a deal we just couldn't pass up!

After another hour of signing paperwork, the Nissan was ours! And it even met all our criteria. It has 45,000 miles, blows very cold A/C and sports a CD player. It also has an auxiliary jack so we can plug our ipods directly into the car stereo system, which was a major plus! :) And it came in at $9900.

You may be wondering, as I did, why it was marked down by the dealership. The reason was not because it was damaged in any way, it was because it had been sitting on the lot for 30 days. Apparently this dealership has a policy that if a car sits on their lot for 30 days, they mark it down to the wholesale price just to move the car off the lot. If the car doesn't sell after a few days at the wholesale price, they send it back to the auction and sell it for whatever they can get for it.

We feel so blessed to have found this car. It's so beautiful and exactly what we were looking for.

Bye-bye Cavalier...

Hello Nissan :)