Saturday, August 30, 2008

Looky, looky....

Guess who bought a car? That's right. Me.
Bad credit these days is a serious problem and I had to settle for some terms that were a bit steep, but all in all, I am a very happy boy. Let me tell you about my day.

We went out at around 11am to Freeway Ford because the lady Danica who was helping us told us she could get us financed. We get there and we get stuck with some man, Kevin, who is kinda just, blah. We waited and waited and waited around for him to give us the rundown on what we had to do to get into a new car. He came back and said the banks computers were down and we had to wait for an hour or maybe two for them to be back up. I think my credit report probably shorted the system. So, we headed out to Taco Bell for some cheap lunch and to wait for him to call us. Eventually he does and says the banks cannot finance me unless I have a co-signer or at least $1500 down. Since they appraised our car at $200, we were stuck. Here we were, so excited and picking out our favorite cars and imagining the possibilities and then... nothing.

Now, I know I have bad credit, but as of the last couple of years, I have been perfect with my credit cards and things like that, and I have been getting things paid. Give me a break.

So, I get a little bit angry and I head back to the dealership. I ask for Danica, the first person to help us (and a godsend at that), and ask her what's up. She explains that a few banks have recently gone bankrupt and most of the available financers are very cautious these days due to the economy. I give her a sad look of hopelessness and shrug it off and thank her for her time. She takes a few steps towards her office and then turns around and calls me back. "Hey Micah- come back here for a minute. I know what to do, but you cannot tell anyone I'm doing this."

She gives me a name and a number for a guy named Tim at GO Drivetime, and places a call to him telling him to put us in a car and gives him the thumbs up for us. We head down there and it's right next to our house. We tell him we have not much down but are in dire need of a car before ours dies on us.

They took our car as trade in and gave us, wait for it....... $1100.00 as trade. This was a shocker to us because nobody wanted it. NOBODY. We looked around the lot and I found a Mitsubishi Galant that I've been wanting for awhile. He OK's it, we sign some papers and go over some stuff and off we went. Waving that miserable scrapheap behind.

They gave us the CARFAX report on it and everything was clean. It has a warranty in case anything goes wrong also. Plus it only has 70,000 miles on it as opposed to the 170,000 that the Kia had. Brand new tires, perfect body, nice sound system, 26 MPG (decent), and runs beautifully. It's so quiet. Our car was like an amusement park with jolts at every turn and noises that belong in a haunted house. It gets detailed and waxed on Tuesday and we couldn't be more excited.

However, due to my poor credit, the car is gonna cost me $13,000, which isn't too bad and I actually thought it would be more due to the interest rate I would get. But thats OK. It is a necessary bill to have and having an auto loan on your credit in good standing can raise your credit score up to 100 points. That would do me good.

So, YAY!!!! I can drive now!!! I'm fully insured and feel very good about myself. I'm very grateful for Danica who was so sweet and helped us out tremendously to make sure my family had reliable transportation. It wasn't her problem, but she made it her problem.

Maybe it's karma coming back to me for helping that homeless girl. Yeah that's it. It's all full-circle, my friends.



Who's that guy?




3 comments:

YogaNana said...

I get to be the first to congratulate you! YAY!!!!!!!

Seriously, we're cheering. :o) Very happy for you!


Love,
Mom

Abby said...

That's so awesome, Micah! Yay for you!!!!


...Did they seriously put your old picture on your new license? That's rad.

Jenna said...

Congrats, Micah! Our credit has taken a nosedive too, so we'll be in the same situation hopefully soon, rebuilding with a car loan. This must feel so good for you. I'm thrilled.

Except I don't like the fact that you're 6' and you weigh the same as I do. EAT! Seeing that was the most depressing part of my day. I'll work on my number if you work on yours. Deal?