We sat in the Saab 900 turbo, glumly silent. About now we were supposed to be wafting off in the distance in Mr SB, a '91 Lexus LS400. But instead here we were back in the street outside the car dealer, trade-in rejected and negotiation apparently not an option.
"Well", I said brightly, "Let's go and look at the white one."
We'd previously found another LS400, white, sunroof'd and with seventeens. And don't LS400s look so much better in white, anyway? Consider that the other Lexus on offer also had 'only' 180,000 kays, and well, we started getting excited again. But this time, I thought, I'll do the financial wheeling and dealing a bit differently. This time I'll get a changeover price before we even drive the car. Changeover too high? - well then, no point in wasting everyone's time.
The white Lexus crouched in the yard, its lowered suspension and the big wheel and tyre package giving the civilised shape a visual aggression totally lacking in the standard car. Looking at its presence, you could just imagine exiting corners at full noise, 190kW V8 howling near its redline as the road was spat backwards. We smiled at each other as we waded through the gravel of the bodgy little caryard... this day might turn out to be wonderful after all...
But it didn't.
Looked at closely, the white LS400 was a dunger. The driver's door didn't fit flush with the bodywork, the massive amount of overspray on the door rubber further showing the bad repair work undertaken after an accident. The steering wheel had chunks out of its leather, the service record was incomplete, and the suspension lowering job had been done with no thought to correcting the resulting camber changes. Worse still, the driver's seatbelt was literally shredded - this car wasn't even road legal. Then we started looking more closely - to find that the first aid and valet packs were missing, the leather was less than immaculate, and there were plenty of paint chips and scratches. Compared with the church-going honesty of Mr SB, this car had the paper-thin veneer of respectability normally associated with a sleazy businessman.
It would certainly wanna be cheap - but it wasn't. Stickered at $29,000, the best changeover on offer was $22,000.
And anyway, there was simply no way that I wanted to talk Georgina into a car that looked like it would have major maintenance problems a bit further down the track. Like, if the auto trans blew up tomorrow, it wouldn't have much surprised me....
We left: from elation to disappointment again. The afternoon light was now fading, but feigning enthusiasm, I asked if Georgina wanted to visit some more yards looking for other LS400s. She didn't - and so we went home.
It was the next day that I re-ran through my head the unsuccessful purchase scenario of the brown LS400, Mr SB.
The salesman hadn't even come back with a counter-offer!
When I'd said that we wouldn't accept less than ten grand for the Saab, had I really made such a strong impression that he'd immediately given up when the yard couldn't reach that figure? I know that I'd said "ten thousand dollars" several times fairly strongly ... but then you gotta make an ambit claim!
I mulled over it again and again. What changeover would we have accepted? The brown Lexus was marked at $26,000, and further research had shown that the Saab Turbo had a wholesale price of around $5,000. That made its trade-in value a reasonable $8,000, giving a changeover of $18,000. So, all we were asking was that they take three grand off the price of the Lexus and give us only wholesale on the Saab - or pay us a decent trade-in and keep the Lexus price as marked. Surely that was reasonable? I picked up the phone and dialled the yard - only to find that 'our' salesman was on holidays. In his absence I recounted the story to the Assistant Manager. He listened closely then suggested that they'd better take another look at the Saab. In fact, he said, he'd even get their wholesaler down just to examine it. Significantly, he also added that he was sure that a deal could be negotiated.
Then, just when everything at last seemed to be going to plan, another potential car cropped up. Another two cars, in fact. While telling the story of Mr SB at work, Georgina learned that a friend of her boss was a car wholesaler... and he could certainly get a cheap LS400. With the purchase of Mr SB now looking much more positive, we gave him just 24 hours... and he found two cars. The first had a whopping 275,000km on it... and that's too much, even for me. But the other car sounded much more encouraging. Weirdly it was also brown in colour (when before looking at these cars we'd never seen another Lexus in that shade!) and it was available for around a $15,000 changeover.... Georgina shot off to look at it, only to find that compared with Mr SB, this car was obviously inferior. No first aid or valet kits, different (non-Z rated) tyres on every rim, service record incomplete and interior leather torn. (Incidentally, it's not that we're first aid and valet kit junkies, but the presence or absence of these items gives an easy indication of the car's long-term care and condition....) But even with a sunroof, 190,000km and that excellent changeover price, this car didn't make for a convincing case.
So back to Mr SB.
The Assistant Manager at Mr SB's yard had wanted to see the Saab for (re)evaulation before he (re)negotiated the deal. They inspected and drove the turbo Swede, we argued and discussed. Then, much to our surprise, the deal on Mr SB was done at $18,000 changeover plus on-road costs.
Just like that.
The original salesman? - dunno quite what he was doing, but no one else in the place worked the way he had....
Georgina signed on the dotted line and we took the Saab home for the last time. And that damn car knew it was being rejected - and it didn't like it. There was a whine from the front left wheel bearing - it was spitting the dummy. Even in the 24 hours that we had the car after its trade-in value had been signed and sealed, the whine got louder and louder and louder... But still, that was now someone else's problem, as was the fact that the brake pedal would slowly sink when stopped at the lights. And it was the new owner who could be worried about the edge of rust appearing around the sunroof, and the clunk from the front suspension that came when the car was hot...
We were bubbling over with excitement as Georgina drove the Lexus from the yard. Formerly known as Mr SB, it took only a few minutes of looking through the complete and original owner's handbook to find that in fact her LS400 should now really be known much more formally as Mr Grey Mica Rose....
And it was while turning the pages of paperwork that we made the best discovery yet. Georgina is just the second owner of the car - yes, she's just bought a one-owner, pristine Lexus LS400.
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