Altima 2012

If you really look at new year, it is a day - the day being December 31st every year. Now if you look at all the december 31sts that I have seen so far and rank them from the significance that the day offered me, then today is the day that ranks much much above any other December 31st that I have seen so far. December 31st marked the arrival of a new car in our life - the Nissan Altima 2.5S dark slate with charcoal interior - this being the very car that we had loved and sought after having used it for a couple of weeks as a rental car.It is not just the asset, it also marked the fruitful culmination of a lot of effort and the big challenge of getting a car before the rental car entitlement expires.
The challenge was real as I did not have a Georgia driver's license, I had no credit in the US to be able to get finance support neither did I have lot of cash on me having spent unreasonably on Black Friday earlier. Apart from these real challenges , there were the challenges of choice - with such a wide market , such a plethora of possibilities. When I had bought Fiesta in India, I had not even read the specs for the vehicle once neither have I read the specs in my four years of usage. I was open to buying anything from a 1990 2K car to a brand new BMW - the reasoning ranging from 'you just need a car as a necessity to go to office/shop etc' to 'Driving a BMW is possible here - go on and take the chance while you have it!'. With very little awareness of cars , with little awareness of the US market and the way things work in US , it was like jumping into a big turbulent river of cars and picking up the right one for you.
If I trace back the search exercise, today ends the second month in the US - first month was a lull and the focus was to have a home setup which we did. With no rental car, there was no possibility of shopping for cars in the first month. The advices from office folks were to go for a Toyota/Honda. This matched with the advices from Divya's family friend Balu and Divya's cousin's husband Prakashettan. There was also the sedan/suv choice. BMW lease for 350$ a month seemed good but then there was severe opinion against lease from my office. At the end of the lease you have no car with you, the lease payments are a loss - don't go for it. I was not completely convinced which is when I tried the more economic sounding offer of 225$ a month for a honda-crv.So one weekend, I think mid-december, it is time to hit the road shopping - so Divya,myself and Niya went to a Honda shop on cobb parkway. Salesman came in and started his theatrics. I played straight and told him I have just come from India and have no credit and would like to take a lease. Oh you know what you can talk to the finance guy over there. From then on I did not exist. 6 foot 90 kg did not exist to anyone on the showroom - 'a hope you walk out soon' atmosphere. Well I had to know what the deal was. I pushed the finance guy to explain me the stuff and he told me things I have still not understood.Bottomline was you are not getting it. Divya was frustrated with the incident and we decided that I will take the shopping on me fully as this ain't gonna be a lot of fun and Divya does not like to see me getting into uncomfortable conversations.One good outcome was the clarity was that leases and zero-creditors were not made for each other. I dropped by to the next shop to see a used-CRV without telling him about the zero-credit and getting a great test round. He was sore at me for not buying the car right away. That settled things for Divya.
The next day I went early morning, the plan being to visit as many showrooms as possible on cobb parkway and get test drives to get a feel for the various vehicles.Well as luck would have it, shops open only at 12 PM. So I kept going and stopped at Team Nissan as Nissan has a tie-up with Manhattan Associates. I reached around 11:40 and studied the cars and the price tags placed in the open. CM Patel arrived and attended to me. With the sore experiences so far, I had a great time test driving the v6 3.5 and v4 2.5 altimas. The meeting ended with action items on me to get a Georgia driver's license and to get my finance approved.Toyota Marrietta chased me off as I did not have a valid Georgia driver's license. Next to Toyota Marrietta used car showroom, where a soft elderly friendly lady showed me used Camrys and I hung around with the hope to get some test drives. The gentle lady kept at a practiced friendly niceness that suddenly changed to a business matter-of-factness as I had to answer on whether I am ok with the quotes before I take the test drive. The change-over was a revelation. I walked out happy though as I did get some perspective on the prices of used cars. With very little hope for test drives, I got a luck break as I test drove a 2001 BMW and a 2002 Camry around 8K each on my way back. He took me on the highway and that was fun. BMW was good most of the time but as I enjoyed and accelerated there were points when brakes would apply while I am hitting on the gas to my shock. Next I dropped at Volvo shop as I had heard that Volvo had some trouble in business. I might have some opportunity here. Well I did not - they were bigger expensive cars - shop closed.
I forget the trail of thoughts but somewhere along the decision to buy a cheap car of 8K stuck, the reasoning being that the home loan needs to be closed first and once everything is in place, buy a new 'whatever car works best' for you as you would have got complete clarity in some time. That way, you can buy whatever you really want and not a compromise with the current restrictions.I think the advice from Balu that a new car suffers a 33% depreciation the day it is out of the showroom was key. Also , Balu presented a perception of the car as a utility for moving around and you can fulfill that need within a budget of even 5K. I bought it and worked on it with Balu's help on craiglist.Chaz(from MA) also advised me and guided me on sites where private-owner used cars can be bought from. Everyday after office, I used to search craiglist for cars under 8K near our area. That was when I saw two audis within 8K. The sleeping dream of driving luxury cars stirred. One evening I drove an A4 , the next morning I test drove an A6. A6 was better than the A4 and better priced too and better drive too. It had 115K but had already taken all the beatings that audis take at this age and had been fixed. I was ready for some risk of further damage in return for the pleasure of driving this spacious A6 allroad. I got a mechanic check done and got a clean chit. Then I did a carfax and much to my disappointment , learned that this had a lemon title. I was fine taking this risk too. The only piece that did not fit was that the owner had told me that the car had taken a bumper hit after he had posted the car on craiglist and the carfax showed this date to be in April which means he has been trying to sell the car for 8 months unsuccessful. He is a manager guy with all the polish and friendliness.Well, I may love the drive this car offers but I am not going to sell this. Audi dropped.
Balu had sent me a list of craiglist preferred items - called each of them and got complete details.As I was stuck with the allroad, I lost quite a few of them as they got sold out!The ones remaining were of guys who bought from craiglist and sold in craiglist. The number one option in Balu's list reappeared in a different ad with the price hiked up by 1K!. The owner was gruff.
Thought he is some rich gruff guy so went to him inspite as car was what mattered. He was another buy-and-sell guy and he did not know cars well and the car did not have insurance either. All shady shady. Too many variables and too little time.
Well, so it was time to explore year-end deals on new cars. Test drove Camry(Gireesh from MA) , test drove Accord (Nithyanandan) and was leaning towards Altima anyway mainly due to the smooth gear shifts I guess and the experience I have had with the car when used as a rental car. So I went to Nissan USA site and contacted each of the dealers in Smyrna and got quotes from each of them for a 2.5(no S) altima as that seemed to be the cheapest of the viable options.The internet quotes were pretty good and they were around 18K which is pretty good as the MSRP on the vehicle was 21K or so.Two of the dealers offered 15K - crazy as it sounded, I wanted to think that someone was trying to hit the numbers this year end and was ready to sell the car at a loss.
Here went the Team Nissan at Lithia Springs episode.
Team Nissan Lithia Springs :
Let me tell you a few things upfront. I do not have a Georgia license , I don't have any credit in the US. Is the offer of drive-out price of 15K still for a Nissan Altima 2.5 still on?
Absolutely, Cinish
......
I can reprimand Lucy if she has lied to you/even terminate her but there is no way I can sell you the car for 15K.
It was not completely unexpected but I had to take the chance. Deba had come with me and we had used his GPS to find the way. It was my first highway driving stint and we missed turns time and again. We were so novel to the task of using a GPS that reaching the destination was like winning a challenge.Though the response from the dealer was not unexpected, it was still disappointing. Our disappointment came out in the pointless 'This is not professional .. ' discussions with the thick-skinned cold-blooded manager.
Some outcomes of the exercise all the same.
- Saw all the colors of 2.5 - Gray is the one that looks good.
- Interior does not come in black. There is only one color - beige color.
- Got a drive out price of 18.5K
- Test drove the 2.5 and made out that it is the same as 2.5S.
- Interiors don't look that good but that is ok
- VPP discount is only one as per Scott. They can give you a VPP discount from the dealer itself and if yes, you dont get it from MA again.
Just so that the day does not go completely ineffective, I changed my rental car to a Hyundai Sonata as this one also fell in the list of cars being considered in parallel to Altima, the others being Accord and Camry.
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The next day, following Gireesh's advice, I bought a Garmin GPS instead of a Tomtom.Team Nissan of Lithia Springs called me back and asked me how was the experience. I said 'It was very disappointing. I had mentioned that I do not have any Georgia drivers license .. '
Oh - you don't have a driver's license, so you couldn't buy the car anyway .. '. That was insult to injury! I thought I could atleast whine free after the experience yesterday. After the previous day's visit, Gireesh had invited us for tea at his home and there again, I got the advice to first get a license and then get the loan approved and then shop for cars.
So I decided to put some effort on the license task and started spending after-office hours ( that is time when dealer offices are closed) in reading the material and trying parallel park and reverse park.Our rental agency Avis does not permit taking cars to test where as typically rental car is allowed. The driving test center near our home has sent many of my colleagues back for this reason. Following advice from Jacob(MA), I took the test from Sandy Springs and cleared both written and on-road tests and got my DL. That was the first real progress that I made after having put so many hours on car. This was on 29th of december. The same day I had also called the credit union affiliated to MA and got an approval of 12K loan. I had also been in touch with CM Patel's colleague who had offered me the 2.5 for a walkout of 17.8K which sounded realistic. Later he himself called and said that all 2.5 cars were sold out.
The previous day, to test the GPS , we had driven to the same license office with our Garmin GPS and Divya as the guide and had tried to give a test impromptu but luckily it did not work out as I did not have my passport with me.Now that we have reached Roswell, let us try one dealer in the area and we reached Regal Nissan.The flurry of activity was crazy - reminds you of the police office scenes where everyone is targetting may be a suspect / a meteor about to hit the earth. I was left unattended for some time. Then one guy came in and gave me hardly five minutes before he opened the door for me and told me that all the 2.5 cars were sold out. There is no point in wasting his time - Please walk out the door. Oops - that was the nth time. I felt really bad and I quietly walked to my car realising once again how mortal I was. Divya was spared the experience as she had waited in the car.Once back home, I spoke with a Mike Nicholson who sounded like a nice fair guy. He had similarly offered a walk out of 17K and I wanted to believe him and fix the deal so that I can stop shopping and get the license and loan done. So I pulled up Gorle(MA) and we went with him helping me with the GPS. So this Mike figure did not turn up. He would not pick his call. Stupefied, I went to the manager and lent out my frustrations on him. Gorle chimed in with me as Deba had done the previous day. Manager himself was frustrated with shoppers and he lent out some frustrations from his side. His table piled up with files of frustrations. To our pleasant surprise, Mike arrived and took out quite a few of my files from the table. Well - he is atleast here and has waited for me this late(9 PM). And he has a car for 17K but it is a 2011 program car with 7K miles on it! A disappointment definitely but not as stark as the earlier ones. It is a 2.5S with power seats - an upgraded 2.5S. Sounded ok. A better car though an older car. Kept it in pipeline for further consideration.
29th : This was the big day. Having got my license, having reached home at 8PM , the only place I could go to was Team Nissan on Cobb Parkway.So with no plan, I just went there as I had figured that to know the truth from perceptions, you have to walk down. Well , the truth was there were no 2.5 cars left. Fitted with the pattern I have seen on other dealers. Patel asked me - are you open to 2.5S. I said yes. He came with a quote of 19.3. 19.2 was what I was offered the previous day by Mike's manager for a 2.5. Even otherwise, I could sense that this sounded as good as it gets. I have 12K approved, 3K in cash and the rest is the gap. I said I will try 19K. I got a 19,150. Now to close the gap. I called up Divya's cousin in New York who were our local guardians here and who had offered money in case anything is required. Unfortunately, could not connect with them.I called up Gorle but he had only 1K with him, the dollar rates being good, he had transferred money to India. Then I called Jacob(MA) and asked him if he could help. I would be able to return a good amount on 1st when I get my salary. He said - 'Tell them it is fine'. Meanwhile Gorle called again and told me that 1st being a Sunday, salary would come on 30th. That would eat some margin too!So we did all the paperwork , the plan being to put a 3K cheque now itself to reserve the car.After all paperwork was done, they would not take the cheque as it was a temporary cheque.But that did not change anything - the car legally belonged to me to the extent that it would belong to me anyway given the loan. In Patel's office, after our conversation , he offered Water but no water was available. So I got a coke instead and I gladly picked it up to mark the occasion - I felt I deserved it.

I went back to my rental car and called Gorle back and shared the news as I drank my coke.

30th : 30th was dedicated to the formalities of loan . I was required to scan and fax some documents. So I went to my office and did all the scan work. I also had to do the closing the gap work. I called up Jacob and shared my account details. He transferred 1K but could not transfer more as there was a limit of 1K per day.He asked me to give a postdated cheque to the credit union so that he can transfer another 1K the next day. However, meanwhile Gorle had already transferred me 1K but it did not go through and got stuck in 'Approval Pending'. So Gorle called me up and asked me to come to the bank to settle things there. So we went and transferred the money over the counter.
Now, my bank account was set.There was not a whole lot of progress on the loan side. I got a feeling that this is not going to happen today. I called up the credit union and asked them how I need to give my share and followed the instructions and got a cashier's cheque favoring them. Meanwhile , I submitted a couple more forms and got the address where I need to go to to pick up the cheque. The senior loan officer had told me that he would call me and let me know when I could start.I did not have the patience. More importantly, I had nothing else to do. So I fed the address on the GPS and drove alone the first time with no GPS-assistant. I arrived fine and as soon as I arrived, I got the call from the loan officer asking me to reach the office after half an hour or so. I had reached early and signed in and as the official was cutting out the cheque for me, the system crashed. I could wait for half an hour and see if the system comes back up, I could get my cheque, else I could come back the next day. This was as expected.

31st : Georgia's credit union works only 9 to 1. So I went early and picked up my cheques alright.CM called me and I informed him of the cheques. The deal indeed would get closed in 2011. Later on, Niya,Divya and myself went over and Patel explained us the car. The insurance was pending before I could drive out.I had done some ground work on this. Patel offered the use of his office to get done with it and get the insurance faxed to him. Once set, he drove the new altima to our home and I drove him back.
Then we called up folks and friends and shared the news and thanked for the help. We had called up Deba who called us over to his home. We shared the joy and I converted my experiences into advices and fed him those as he needs to get through with the same. I could not stop myself and kept repeating the same points again and again. We had Aloo Paratha for dinner and got a new light for the home and reached back. Divya took two rounds on the car as well. As we already had a 2012 Altima as our rental car, it was just a home-coming for the car and we did not really feel that we got a new car.The car had just come back to where it had belonged!