Mountain Clams

You're selling *me*?!?

Our last car loan on our Honda Odyssey was paid off earlier this year,so a couple weeks ago, my wife and I decided to start looking for a replacement for our 16-year-old Accord. We decided that it would be useful to have a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and that it should probably be a truck of some sort.

Among other places, we stopped in at a local Nissan dealer to look at the Titan, Xterra and Pathfinder. When we neared the front door, the salesman appeared from behind a pillar and greeted us. He told us he just got back from his lunch break (it was 7 PM), and fumbled with his name tag as he put it back on his shirt. We told him what we were looking for, and we headed into the dealer parking lot.

Our first stop was the Pathfinder. My wife asked, "where is the spare on this?" as we were standing to the side of it. The salesman explained that the "Etcetera spare is underneath in the back." My wife glanced up at the roofrack where four-inch-tall white letters proudly proclaimed the name of the vehicle and asked, "so how about this Pathfinder here?" We were both wondering when Nissan came out with the Etcetera.

We looked at and pretty quickly dismissed the Xterra. No matter how you pronounce it, it wasn't right for our needs. So we moved on to the Titan. One of the first things we noticed was that someone had used the bed for a trash can. You'd think a dealer might spend a little time cleaning this up in the morning, but it could've gotten dirty since then. Checking the features, it seemed like a good choice to drive. We picked out one that matched our color and equipment preferences from among the ones available and began to look it over. The one we selected also had trash in the back. Hm... maybe this is"standard equipment!"

We asked if we could drive it, or at the very least get a look at the inside (since their vehicles were all locked up). The salesman started to walk away. We called him back to let him know he'd need a license to allow us to drive the vehicle. He took it and went for the key.

10 minutes later, he returns with key and license in hand. He opens the truck and gets in. My wife was standing on the passenger side. He tries to unlock the door, but it doesn't work - the battery is dead. He walks back to the garage to get the mechanic who would jump-start the truck. They brought a battery-on-hand-truck device specifically designed for jump-starting. A few moments later, it's started.

We all get in and drive towards the lot exit. On the way there, the salesman notices that the truck is nearly out of gas. He pulls into a space at the front of the lot and turns off the truck while he runs in for whatever he needs to get gas. While my wife and I are sitting there, the truck begins to click and the speedometer needle jumps as the battery goes through its death throes again.

The salesman returns and we inform him that he needs to jump-start the truck again. He goes back to the garage while my wife and I step away from the truck and let them do what they're going to do. We watch as the salesman wheels the jump-start unit around to the front of the truck and struggles with matching red to red and black to black. Five minutes later, he gets the truck started again. He slowly disconnects the jump-starter and coils up the wires on the hand truck. He closes the hood of the truck and turns to wheel the jump-starter back to the garage, running it right into the lamp post that he parked next to. He was genuinely surprised that the lamp post was there!

So we go back over to the truck, now that it's running, and the salesguy tells us that we need to go "up the road" to get gas. I open my door and tell him to have a good time with that, but keep in mind when you get gas, you should turn the truck engine off. I, for one, don't want to have to walk back from there. My wife came to the same conclusion nearly as quickly as I did and was doing the same thing.

We left the dealer at about 8:10 to grab some dinner. This whole process took longer than an hour, but at least showed us that we didn't want the Titan. Beyond the sales experience, there was enough that we didn't like about it to disqualify it. Needless to say, the salesman didn't get my phone number from me. :-)

Labels: truck

posted by Brett @ 11:20 AM